only in appearance, but also in reality, yet they always move by rule, and astronomers know at all times where to look for them.

Such watching as this means the giving of time and trouble, but it is worth while. Even while we must all depend largely on what others can tell us, since there is an enormous amount which we could never discover for ourselves, yet the little that we can do well repays for the trouble.

than

In a sense stars are more easily followed planets, because through centuries they do not visibly alter their positions, one with regard to another. The different groups or constellations still look the same to us as they did in the days of the patriarchs. The soft shining of the Pleiades and the armour of Orion we see just as Job saw them. The Great Bear has not appreciably altered in shape since the time of Julius Cæsar.

Even before learning the names of the constellations, you might become familiar with some of their shapes; and then, with the help of a star-map, you could discover what they are called.

Or again, the map may be studied first, and afterward you can try to find out the constellations and the chief stars belonging to them.

Though we speak of star-magnitudes, which means star-sizes, no true star in the sky can show to us any difference of size. The only real difference lies in degrees of brightness. A star of the first magnitude does not mean a star which looks bigger, but only a star which looks brighter. The light of each star comes in a single slender ray of light, and the star itself is to us only a

point even in the most powerful of telescopes, still only a point! No telescope yet made has ever been able to show a disc-that is, a surface with any breadth--of any single star. The planets show discs, or a surface which can be measured, which has breadth-but the stars, never! They are too far distant.

star.

One of the first to have pointed out to you should be the Pole-star, at the tip of the Little Bear's tail. The two pointers of the Great Bear point towards the PoleAnd in the daily seeming whirl of the heavens that faint Pole-star, lying over our north pole, scarcely stirs, while the constellations near keep circling round and round the Pole-star, as seen by us in the northern hemisphere. Eut this circling is not real. It is due to Earth's own daily spinning on her axis.

So Cæsar claimed

"But I am constant as the Northern Star,
Of whose true-fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament." 1

Among those northern circling groups may be found the beautiful star Capella, in the constellation of Auriga, one of the brightest in our sky. Another glorious star, farther off, is Arcturus in Boötes. Others among the brightest are Vega and Aldebaran.

But the most radiant in the whole heavens is Sirius; and this distant sun can only be seen by us in winter months. When once you have found the magnificent constellation of Orion-also a winter constellation to us in the north—you will find Sirius with ease, because the two feet-stars of Orion point in almost a straight line to that brilliant star, with his gleaming diamond sparkle.

On the other side of Sirius may be seen the soft shimmer of the Pleiades, many dim stars which look as if they were close together, and of which not many people, at least in our English climate, can often make out more than six or seven. Not far off is another bright star, Aldebaran.2

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The word constellation is from two Latin words which mean "star" and "together," or "connection." So the strict sense seems to be a group of stars connected together." How far such stars really are connected is another question. Sometimes undoubtedly they are, but not always, and not necessarily.

1 Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar.

2 In such studies of the heavens, great help may be obtained from a volume of star-maps, Half-Hours with the Stars, by R. A. Proctor. Their positions at different times and different hours are clearly given, with directions how to use the maps,

This grouping of stars into definite constellations, with names, belongs to a very early period in the world's history.

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In martial stride he still goes down

With all his stars at rest.

When Earth was young and Night was old,

That harness he put on,

And girt for war, with nails of gold,

The belted warrior shone." 1

III. SOME OTHER WORLDS

The planets which belong to our Solar System—that is, to the Family of our Sun-are far nearer to us than any of the stars. So much so, that they can easily be seen to move onward in the course of weeks and months. Really to move, I mean; not merely to seem as if they moved because we ourselves move. They journey round

1 From The Heart of Peace and Other Poems, by Laurence Housman. Pub.: William Heinemann. By permission.

and round the Sun, just as our Earth journeys round and round him. And as they travel, they appear to us to wander in and out, to and fro, among the so-called “fixed stars."

Actually, they do nothing of the kind. What happens is that, in their onward movements, we see them against one star-group after another in the sky. It is much the same as if you stood on the beach, watching a small boat some little distance out. You would see it against one far-off ship after another, as it passed along; and this would not mean that the boat ever went near those ships, but only that you happen to see the two in the same "line of sight," though they might be separated by many miles of water.

Again, no stars are truly "fixed," though by reason of their enormous distance they seem to us to be so, keeping their constellation-shapes unchanged through centuries.

" of all

Most easily found and most easily "kept the planets is Venus, the lovely "Evening Star of some months in the year, and quite as truly the "Morning Star" of other months. Venus is not a star at all, but a planet or world, much the same in size as this world on which we live. No other planet and no star in all the sky shines with such a lustre as Venus at her best; not because she is larger or brighter than all other heavenly bodies, but because she is better placed for our powers of sight.

Once get this beautiful orb pointed out to you, and you may enjoy her soft resplendence evening after evening, or morning after morning, weather permitting. She is never very far away from the Sun, being nearer to