“From Zeus we lead the strain; he whom mankind Ne’er leave unhymned: of Zeus all public ways, All haunts of men, are full; and full the sea, And harbours; and of Zeus all stand in need. _We are his offspring_:(17) and he, ever good and mild to man, Gives favouring signs, and rouses us to toil. Calling to mind life’s wants: when clods are best For plough and mattock: when the time is ripe For planting vines and sowing seeds, he tells, Since he himself hath fixed in heaven these Signs, The stars dividing: and throughout the year Stars he provides to indicate to man The seasons’ course, that all things duly grow,” etc., etc. Then ARATUS proceeds to describe and explain all the Signs and Constellations as the Greeks in his day understood, or rather misunderstood, them, after their true meaning and testimony had been forgotten. Moreover, ARATUS describes them, not as they were seen in his day, but as they were seen some 4,000 years before. The stars were not seen from Tarsus as he describes them, and he must therefore have written from a then ancient Zodiac. For notwithstanding that we speak of “fixed stars,” there is a constant, though slow, change taking place amongst them. There is also another change taking place owing to the slow recession of the pole of the heavens (about 50" in the year); so that while _Alpha_ in the constellation of _Draco_ was the Polar Star when the Zodiac was first formed, the Polar Star is now _Alpha_ in what is called _Ursa Minor_. This change alone carries us back at least 5,000 years. The same movement which has changed the relative position of these two stars has also caused the constellation of the _Southern Cross_ to become invisible in northern latitudes. When the constellations were formed the _Southern Cross_ was visible in N. latitude 40°, and was included in their number. But, though known by tradition, it had not been seen in that latitude for some twenty centuries, until the Cape of Good Hope had been discovered. Then was seen again _The Southern Cross_ depicted by the Patriarchs. Here is another indisputable proof as to the antiquity of the formation of the Zodiac. PTOLEMY (150 A.D.) transmits them from HÏPPARCHUS (130 B.C.) “as of unquestioned authority, unknown origin, and unsearchable antiquity.” Sir William Drummond says that “the traditions of the Chaldean Astronomy seem the fragments of a mighty system fallen into ruins.” The word _Zodiac_ itself is from the Greek Ζωδιακός, which is not from Ζάω, _to live_, but from a primitive root through the Hebrew _Sodi_, which in Sanscrit means _a way_. Its etymology has no connection with _living creatures_, but denotes _a way_, or _step_, and is used of the _way_ or _path_ in which the sun appears to move amongst the stars in the course of the year.