Next let us pass to the double constellation adjoining Scorpio and Sagittarius on the north--Ophiuchus and the Serpent. These constellations, as our map shows, are curiously intermixed. The imagination of the old star-gazers, who named them, saw here the figure of a giant grasping a writhing serpent with his hands. The head of the serpent is under the Northern Crown, and its tail ends over the star-gemmed region that we have just described, called "Sobieski's Shield." Ophiuchus stands, as figured in Flamsteed's "Atlas," upon the back of the Scorpion, holding the serpent with one hand below the neck, this hand being indicated by the pair of stars marked Epsilon ([epsilon]) and Delta ([delta]), and with the other near the tail. The stars Tau ([tau]) and Nu ([nu]) indicate the second hand. The giant's face is toward the observer, and the star Alpha ([alpha]), also called Ras Alhague, shines in his forehead, while Beta ([beta]) and Gamma ([gamma]) mark his right shoulder. Ophiuchus has been held to represent the famous physician AEsculapius. One may well repress the tendency to smile at these fanciful legends when he reflects upon their antiquity. There is no doubt that this double constellation is at least three thousand years old--that is to say, for thirty centuries the imagination of men has continued to shape these stars into the figures of a gigantic man struggling with a huge serpent. If it possesses no other interest, then it at least has that which attaches to all things ancient. Like many other of the constellations it has proved longer-lived than the mightiest nations. While Greece flourished and decayed, while Rome rose and fell, while the scepter of civilization has passed from race to race, these starry creations of fancy have shone on unchanged. The mind that would ignore them now deserves compassion. The reader will observe a little circle in the map, and near it the figures 1604. This indicates the spot where one of the most famous temporary stars on record appeared in the year 1604. At first it was far brighter than any other star in the heavens; but it quickly faded, and in a little over a year disappeared. It is particularly interesting, because Kepler--the quaintest, and not far from the greatest, figure in astronomical history--wrote a curious book about it. Some of the philosophers of the day argued that the sudden outburst of the wonderful star was caused by the chance meeting of atoms. Kepler's reply was characteristic, as well as amusing: