Readers of Voltaire will remember that the hero of his extraordinary story of "Micromegas" came from an imaginary planet circling around Sirius. Inasmuch as Voltaire, together with Dean Swift, ascribed two moons to Mars many years before they were discovered (probably suggested by a curiously mistaken interpretation by Kepler of an anagram in which Galileo had concealed his discovery of the ring of Saturn), it is all the more interesting that the great infidel should have imagined an enormous planet circling around the Dog-Star. But Voltaire went far astray when he ascribed a gigantic stature to his "Sirian." He makes Micromegas, whose world was 21,600,000 times larger in circumference than the earth, more than twenty miles tall, so that when he visited our little planet he was able to wade through the oceans and step over the mountains without inconvenience, and, when he had scooped up some of the inhabitants on his thumb-nail, was obliged to use a powerful microscope in order to see them. Voltaire should rather have gone to some of the most minute of the asteroids for his giant, for under the tremendous gravitation of such a world as he has described Micromegas himself would have been a fit subject for microscopic examination. But, however much we may doubt the stature of Voltaire's visitor from Sirius, we can not doubt the soundness of the conclusion at which he arrived, after having, by an ingenious arrangement, succeeded in holding a conversation with some earthly philosophers under his microscope, namely, that these infinitely little creatures possessed a pride that was almost infinitely great. East and south of Canis Major, which, by-the-way, is said to represent one of Orion's hounds, is part of the constellation Argo, which stands for the ship in which Jason sailed in search of the golden fleece. The observer will find many objects of interest here, although some of them are so close to the horizon in our latitudes that much of their brilliancy is lost. Note the two stars [zeta] and [pi] near the lower edge of the map, then sweep slowly over the space lying between them. About half-way your attention will be arrested by a remarkable stellar arrangement, in which a beautiful half-circle of small stars curving above a larger star, which is reddish in color, is conspicuous. This neighborhood will be found rich in stars that the naked eye can not see. Just below the star [eta], in Canis Major, is another fine group. The star [pi], which is deep yellow or orange, has three little stars above it, two of which form a pretty pair. The star [xi] has a companion, which forms a fine test for an opera-glass, and is well worth looking for. Look also at the cluster 93 M, just above and to the west of [xi]. The stars [mu] and [kappa] are seen double with an opera-glass.