An Ancient Astronomer.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 9 September 1890, Page 3

An Ancient Astronomer.

Thehe are forty-eight principal constellations or groups of stars. Their history carries us back into the long past. The earliest complete account of them is given in the poem of Aratus, a Greek, who lived about 260 b.c, a poem which has been immortalised by St. Paul, who quoted from its beautiful opening verses on Mars' Hill. It might have been supposed that we were indebted to Greek philosophers for dividing the heavens into these constellations ; but it was impossible m the time of Aratus, or at anytime dnriug the history of Greece, for the groups to have beeu mapped out from any one place, for some of them then, as now, would not be visible from one place. It has been discovered th it the earth's position is slowly changing, and that the whole solar system is moving in a cire'e in the sky. If we ask whether in any period in the earth's history the. c was any pliice from which a map of the co istellations could have ben drawn, we are i.iforaicd that about 2800 b.c. persons living not far from North Latitude 40 degrees could have sien all the forty-eight to; stollitions. There is a space in the heavens inside of which ncne of the constellations appear. The centre r.f this vacant space at the period named — 2800 b.o — we are told was the South Pole of the h avens, and this space would then hava.bean invisible at North Latitude 40 degrees Now, Noah lived in about Nor h Latitude 40 degrees, and the Deluge took place about 2800 b.c. Is there anything in the constellations whi:-h suggest a referonce to the scene of Ararat ? In the southern constella' tioiiß,wehavo a ship (Argo) grounded on a Mount ; here is a human figure (Centaurus) who has apparently ju.-sfc left the Ship, ;<nd \v''o sacrifices a victim upon an Altnr. The Milky Way forms the smoke that rises from the Altar; and here in the midst of the cloud is set for ever The Bowthat is, of Sagittarius, the Archer. "We may therefore ascribe to Noah the grouping of the stars. It is probable that knowing his descendants would speedily be scattered over the whole earth, he devised a g-ries of symbols to show forth religious truth as he knew it, and associated these symbols with the only objects which men could never destroy, and from the sight of which they could never wander. The Scorpion is a brilliant constel* ldtion. Upon the Scorpion there stands a man strangling a serpent, and hence called Orphiuchus — t c , the Serpent-bearer. The siar.s which make up his head also compose the ln«ad of another man, whom we now call Hercules, but who was anciently known simp'y as the Kneeler. In the days ot Noah, the stars which compose the two heads we* c in the z nith, so that the o server looking south caw Orphiuchus erect strangling' the Serpent and trampling on the Scorpion ; and looking north, the simi'ar but not identical symbol of Hercules likewise erect, kneeling ■ n the Dra gon and crushing its head. The left loot of Orphiuchus crushes down the Scorpion's head into the ear.h, but the reptile's sting curls up and wounds its conqueror's right heal. Again, we have a woman, Andromeda, chained io a rock ; a seamonster or dragon, Cetus, threatens to devour her. The, Dragon is restrained from destroying the woman by the action o£ the Earn, sometimes called the Lamb. Our readers will divine the Scripture allusions in the above s-ugges* tiors, which are gathered Irom a paper written by E. W. Maunder, F.RA.B.