Evening star., 1918-07-28
Significance of Dog Days.

significance OF U0g DAYS.
DoG days have come again, and
- millions of people will discuss the
ancient superstition that dog days and
not the seasons are Responsible Ior
torrid weather. In many minds there
is a belief that there is some connec-
tion between dog days and ordinary
dogs. but this is not true-that is.
the ancients from whom the people OF
today have inherited the superstition
of dog days did not place any blame
for periods Of intense heat upon the
dogs.
It came to be believed by the people
of the old world and Of those parts
of the old world in. which man de-
veloped at the earliest time that the
rising of the dog star with the sun
produced pestiiential heat. This
celestial event always occurred in
summer, and naturally there were
waves of excessive heat in summer.
But the dog star had nothing to DO
with that. The dog star rose with the
sun and intense heat preceded or fol.
lowed that event: therefore. the heat
starr did rise with the 1t was
purely circumstantial evidence on
which the ancients convicted the dog
star of having anything to do, WITH
excessive heat.
Neither is there any connection be-
tween dogs and the dog star, but when
the dog star was in the ascendant
dogs, as well as other animals and
also men, suffered from the heat and
from thirst; perhaps because, In times
Of excessive heat. some dogs in classic
times suffered SO much from thirst
that they went mad Then. OF course
II was clearly to be seen that there
must be some connection between the
dog star dog days and dogs, but there
was no doubt in the minds of ancient
men that the dog star was responsible
for all this. However. the dog star
and dog days belief was as strongly
fixed in mems faith as that there was
some close connection between comets
and war and comets and pestilence.
From the time that eastern shep-
herds watched the skies at night and
drew a more or less fanciful likeness
between the groups of stars and OBJ
jects known on earth. they called one
constellation by a name which the
very early Romans translated into
Canis Major. or the Greater Dog"
The brightest star I'm the heavens was
in the mouth of that constellation
whlch TO some 1maglnatlOnS possessed
resemblance to the outlines of a dog.
And the chief star in that group came
to be called the dog star. 1t is better
known today by the name of Sirius.
1t is one of the great stars of the
universe visible to the people of this
sphere, and II is estimated that Sirius
has more than, thirteen times tho
magnitude of our own sun.
The Roman astronomers are no
doubt responsible for our phrase dog
days. because they had a series Of
forty days which they called Dies
Canicular. which translated means
dog days. There were twenty can't
cu3er days before and twenty after
the rising of the dog star, and they
described that rising as "the heliacal
rising meaning the time when the
star, after being practically in con-
junction with the sun and invisible.
emerges from the light so as to be
visible In the morning before sunrise.
After the time when ancient astron-
omers were SO much interested in
canfcular days. those days extended
from July 3 to August IL, but because
OF the procession Of the 'equinoxes IL
is said that they have been beginning
and ending about one day later every
seventy years, 30 that at present peo-
pie do not connect dog days with the
time when the dog star becomes yisi-
bic at sunrise, but they apply the term
to any especially hot and humid
weather in July and. August
ID