Cassiopeia is memorable for being the scene of one of the greatest astronomical occurrences on record. Near the star Kappa (κ), in 1572, appeared the most splendid new star that has ever been seen. It is known as “Tycho’s Star,” the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe having been an assiduous student of the wonderful phenomenon during the sixteen months that it remained visible. There is a red variable star of less than the tenth magnitude quite close to the spot where Tycho recorded the appearance of his _nova_, and it has been thought that this may be the mysterious object itself. In 1901 a new star, almost equal in brilliance to Tycho’s, suddenly burst out in Perseus, between Algol and Algenib, and these two so similar phenomena occurring in the same quarter of the heavens are usually linked together in the discussion of new stars. The reader who wishes more particulars about these stars may consult _Curiosities of the Sky_. The background of the sky around Cassiopeia is a magnificent field for the opera-glass and the telescope. In sweeping over it one is reminded of Jean Paul Richter’s _Dream of the Universe_: “Thus we flew on through the starry wildernesses; one heaven after another unfurled its immeasurable banners before us and then rolled up behind us; galaxy behind galaxy towered up into solemn altitudes before which the spirit shuddered; and they stood in long array, through which the Infinite Beings might pass in progress. Sometimes the Form that lightened would outfly my weary thoughts, and then it would be seen far off before me like a coruscation among the stars, till suddenly I thought to myself the thought of ‘There,’ and then I was at its side. But as we were thus swallowed up by one abyss of stars after another, and the heavens above our eyes were not emptier, neither were the heavens below them fuller; and as suns without intermission fell into the solar ocean like waterspouts of a storm which fall into the ocean of waters, then at length the human heart within me was overburdened and weary, and yearned after some narrow cell or quiet oratory in this metropolitan cathedral of the universe. And I said to the Form at my side: ‘O Spirit! has then this universe no end?’ And the Form answered and said, ‘Lo! it has no beginning!’”