Brown, in his _Primitive Constellations_, undertakes to derive the name from the Akkadian Uru-anna, the “Light of Heaven.” Whatever its origin, it is certainly very ancient. For some thousands of years it has been associated with a traditional giant who looms in the background of Greek mythology. In the classical atlases of the heavens Orion is represented as standing in an attitude of defiance, facing westward, brandishing a huge club above his head, and lifting his left arm, covered with a lion’s hide, to meet the charge of Taurus, the “Bull.” And under some such guise all mankind has seen him for untold ages--always a gigantic figure, always heroic in character, always defying or pursuing--the symbol of strength, courage, conquest, and victory. The same idea underlies every representation of this constellation; whether it be the mythical “Giant” of the East, or “Nimrod” or “Joshua” or the “Armed King” or the “Warrior” or the “Hunter,” it is invariably the figure of a doer of great deeds which is presented to the imagination. And it must be said that the aspect of the constellation is in accord with such thoughts. No one can look at it without a stirring of the blood. It has something of the effect of a great battle-piece, and it is not surprising that they once endeavored in France to connect it with the name of Napoleon. Although its two chief stars are separated some eighteen degrees, and the central “Belt” forms a striking figure by itself, yet there is an unmistakable unity about the constellation, and one would hardly think of dividing it into separate groups. Singularly enough, this sense of oneness is borne out by the photographic discovery that a vast swirl of nebulous matter surrounds the entire constellation, and by the spectroscopic proof that nearly all of its stars belong to one type, which has become known as the “Orion type.” Perhaps the first feature of Orion that strikes the eye is the arrangement of the three nearly equal bright stars which form the Belt. Their Greek-letter names are Delta, Epsilon, and Zeta, and by these they are usually designated, but there is a great charm in their Arabic titles, which, in the same order, are _Mintaka_, “Belt”; _Alnilam_ (from “String of Pearls”); and _Alnitah_, “Girdle.” It will be observed that all of these names have a similar signification, and probably each of them was originally employed to designate the whole row.[2] The Belt is remarkable in another way--it points very nearly toward Sirius; it is like a glittering signboard indicating the position of the brightest star in the sky. To hasty observation the row seems to be perfectly straight, although there is in reality a slight bend, and the distances separating the three stars appear to be exactly equal. The effect is as beautiful as it is surprising.