These constellations formed by chance, in the course of ages, without a fixed object; their inconvenient size, the uncertainty of their boundaries; the complicated designations, for which it was sometimes necessary to exhaust whole alphabets; the bad taste with which observers have introduced into the southern sky the frigid nomenclature of instruments used in science alongside mythological allegories—all these accumulated defects have often suggested plans of reform for the stellar divisions, and even the banishing of all configuration. But ancient customs are difficult to overcome, and it is very probable that, except the recently named groups, which we may now suppress, the venerable constellations will always reign. Such are the provinces of the sky. But these provinces are of no intrinsic value; the important point for us is to make acquaintance with the inhabitants. FOOTNOTES: [6] The French trillion is equivalent to the English billion, or a million times a million (1,000,000,000,000).—J. E. G. [7] The Chinese had designated them all, it is true, at the same epoch, but their groups as well as their denominations are absolutely different from ours, and do not appear to have exercised any influence on the foundations of astronomical history. It was another world, other methods, other inspirations, as if Asia and Europe formed two distinct planets. A distinguished author, M. Schlegel, published in 1875 a Chinese Uranography, which is composed of 670 asterisms, and of which he believes he can trace back the origin to 17,000 years before our era. His argument is not convincing, and it seems to me that the origin of the astronomy of the Celestial Empire can not be very much anterior to the reign of the Emperor Hoang-Ti—that is to say, to the Twenty-seventh Century before our era—and would go back at furthest to the time of Fou-Hi that is to say, to the Twenty-ninth Century. It was about the same epoch—the Twenty-eighth Century before our era—that the Egyptians, observing Sirius, the early rising of which announced the inundation of the Nile, formed their canicular year of 365 days. [8] More correctly, from 2.3 magnitude to 3.5 magnitude.—J. E. G. [9] The author possesses in the Museum of the Observatory at Juvisy a Japanese executioner’s sword, on the guard of which this constellation is engraved. Was it believed that the souls of executed criminals were sent there? [10] See _Astronomical Myths, based on Flammarion’s History of the Heavens_. By J. F. Blake. London, 1876. [11] That is, to the naked eye; it never descends below the tenth magnitude, and always remains visible in a 3-inch telescope.—J. E. G. [12] A constellation wrongly attributed by Arago and others to Hevelius. It is found on the sphere of Eudoxus. [13] Constellations incorrectly attributed to Tycho Brahe. The first is given by Eratosthenes, the second dates from the Emperor Adrian.