Flowers of the SkyProctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony)
Science
Flowers of the Sky
Proctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony)
Astronomy
* * * * *
It will have been noticed that in the figures which I have given of the
Great Bear, Lion, and Ship, I have not altogether adhered to my idea of
simply connecting the stars of a group by lines. To say the truth,
although a rough notion of a bear, lion, or ship may thus be given, the
figure so presented is not altogether satisfactory to the mind. In any
case, as for instance even in the Scorpion (of all these figures the
best marked), the line-figure is very imperfect. But in some cases it
does suggest the idea of an animal or figure, or a part of either, much
in the same way that the idea of a human figure can be suggested by a
few lines forming a skeleton figure, such as our old friend Tommy
Traddles used to draw. Now the Lion, Bear, and Ship are not well suited
for this sort of delineation, as anyone will find who tries to suggest
the idea of a bear, lion, or ship (of the old-fashioned heavily-sterned
sort) by means of a few lines.
In order, however, to show that in some cases a skeleton figure can be
formed by joining the stars of a constellation, and that the figure thus
formed represents (of course in an utterly inartistic sort of way) the
object associated with those stars, I will now take one or two instances
in which such resemblance suggested itself to me without being specially
sought for. I might add to the Crown, Dolphin, and Scorpion, the Chair
of Cassiopeia, the figure of Orion, and the constellation of the Cup; I
omit these, however, not because they are unfit for my purpose, but
because they so obviously illustrate my argument. No one, with the least
power of imagination, can fail to see how a chair, a belted giant, and a
cup, are pictured, as it were, in these constellations. I will take
others where the resemblance is less obvious.
Thus, I think scarcely anyone who is acquainted with the constellation
Andromeda can have failed to be perplexed by the association of the
figure of a chained lady with this group of stars. In the arrangement of
the stars themselves, without lines drawn to connect them, no such
figure can be imagined; at least I fail utterly for my own part when I
attempt to picture such a figure, even now that I recognise how the
figure is formed, skeleton-wise, by connecting lines. I cannot but think
this figure _must_ have been imagined from pictures of the groups of
stars with lines connecting them, and not from the stars themselves.
There is this reason, among others, for so thinking. The lady's head is
represented by a single star, Alpherat. Now a single star in the sky,
however bright, is not large enough to represent the head of a human
figure like Andromeda's. But the representation of a bright star like
Alpherat in a chart or sculpture has sufficient size to serve for a
head, because size is the only way in which brightness can be
indicated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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