The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-07-31
THE STARRY SKIES IN AUGUST
By PROFESSOR BARTON of the University Pennsylvania

The cancellations visible this month are shown on figure l. The names applied to these groups of stars have come down to us from days so remote that no records exist of times when they were not applied. A few names were applied in historic times, but they are not those of inn portant northern constellatlons. A familiar passage often cited to show the age of the consultations is found in Job ix. g. in which reference is made to the Bear (Ursa Major). Orion and the Pleiades. The maps from ancient times show us the out lines of the figures from which the consultations are named. In but few cases is there auy apparent re- semblance between the arrangement of the stars and the figure. In fig ure ? are shown the stars in Ursa Major and the figure of the bear as imagined, so far as we can tell. by those who called this group a bear. It will be seen that the brighter stars do not lie at any important points in the figure. The three stars in the handle of the dipper seem to designate the tail of the bear, but no living bear has tail such as is found in this drawing. The man who drew the bear was an ancient nature faker Any other drawing than bear including the stars would fit the arrangement of the stars as well. Yet these names have been applied to these groups of stars from the ancient times to the present. In earlier times stars were often spoken of as stars in certain parts of the figure Thus Aldebaran was the eye of Taurus (the bulb and Betelgeux was in the shoulder of Orion. This method of designating the position of stars has long since passed from common use.
 Sir John Herschel has aptly de- scribed consultations asc "uncouth figures and outlines of men and monsters which serve in rude and barbarous way to enable us to talk of groups of stars. or districts in the heavens, by names which, though ab- surd and puerile in their origin. have obtained a currency from which it would be difficult to dislodge them In so far as they have really (and some have) any slight resemblance to the figures called up in the im- agination by a view of the more splendid constellations,' they have certain convenience; but as they are otherwise entirely arbitrary and cor respond to no natural subdivisions or groupings of the stars. astronomers treat them lightly or altogether dis regard them except for briefly nam- ing remarkable stars as Alpha Leonis. Beta Scorpi, etc, by letters of the Greek alphabet attached to them.
 The consultations seem to have been almost purposely named and delineated to cause as much confu- sion and inconvenience as possible. Innumerable snakes twine through long and contorted areas of the heavens, where no memory can fol- low them: bears. lions and fishes. large and small, northern and south ern. confuse all nomenclature etc. better system of consultations might have been a material help as an artificial memory"
 Popular opinion has long since de- manded groupings and names which are of real assistance in locating and identifying the stars. In few cases the old arrangements are suf- ficiently appropriate. In our, map this might be said of Draco (thc dragon) Corona (the crown), Sagitta (the arrow) and Scorpio (the SCOT pion), assuming that the long tail Is in view, and Serpens (the serpent). On the other hand. popular usage replaces Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the greater and lesser bears, by the names the big and little dippers, be- cause the stars are arranged in the forms of dippers and not in the forms of bears. So many prefer to call