There was certainly great fitness in the selection of the little group of stars of which this mysterious Algol forms the most conspicuous member, to represent the awful head of the Gorgon carried by the victorious Perseus for the confusion of his enemies. In a darker age than ours the winking of this demon-star must have seemed a prodigy of sinister import. Turn now to the bright star Algenib, or Alpha Persei. You will find with the glass an exceedingly attractive spectacle there. In my note-book I find this entry, made while sweeping over Perseus for materials for this chapter: "The field about Alpha is one of the finest in the sky for an opera-glass. Stars conspicuously ranged in curving lines and streams. A host follows Alpha from the east and south." The picture on page 84 will give the reader some notion of the exceeding beauty of this field of stars, and of the singular manner in which they are grouped, as it were, behind their leader. A field-glass increases the beauty of the scene. The reader will find a starry cluster marked on Map 17 as the "Great Cluster." This object can be easily detected by the naked eye, resembling a wisp of luminous cloud. It marks the hand in which Perseus clasps his diamond sword, and, with a telescope of medium power, it is one of the most marvelously beautiful objects in the sky--a double swarm of stars, bright enough to be clearly distinguished from one another, and yet so numerous as to dazzle the eye with their lively beams. An opera-glass does not possess sufficient power to "resolve" this cluster, but it gives a startling suggestion of its half-hidden magnificence, and the observer will be likely to turn to it again and again with increasing admiration. Sweep from this to Alpha Persei and beyond to get an idea of the procession of suns in the Milky-Way. The nebulous-looking cluster marked 34 M appears with an opera-glass like a faint comet. About a thousand years ago the theologians undertook to reconstruct the constellation figures, and to give them a religious significance. They divided the zodiac up among the twelve apostles, St. Peter taking the place of Aries, with the Triangles for his mitre. In this reconstruction Perseus was transmogrified into St. Paul, armed with a sword in one hand and a book in the other; Cassiopeia became Mary Magdalene; while poor Andromeda, stripped of all her beauty and romance, was turned into a sepulchre!