About the eighth century Bede and certain other theologians and astronomers wished to depose the Olympian gods. They proposed, therefore, to change the names and arrangements of the constellations; they put S. Peter in the place of the Ram; S. Andrew instead of the Bull; and so on. In more recent calendars David, Solomon, the Magi, and other New and Old Testament characters were placed in the heavens instead of the former constellations; but these changes of name were not generally adopted. As an example of these celestial spheres we figure a portion of one named _Coeli stellati Christiani hemisphericum prius_. We here see the Great Bear replaced by the Barque of S. Peter, the Little Bear by S. Michael, the Dragon by the Innocents, the Coachman by S. Jerome, Perseus by S. Paul, Cassiopeia by the Magdalene, Andromache by S. Sepulchre, and the Triangle by S. Peter's mitre; while for the zodiac were substituted the Twelve Apostles. [Illustration: FIG. 3.] In the seventeenth century a proposal was made by Weigel, a professor in the University of Jena, to form a series of heraldic constellations, and to use for the zodiac the arms of the twelve most illustrious families in Europe; but these attempts at change have been in vain, the old names are still kept. Having now explained the origin in modern times of 69 out of the 117 constellations, there remain the 48 which were acknowledged by the Greeks, whose origin is involved in more obscurity. One of the first to be noticed and named, as it is now the most easily recognized and most widely known, is the _Great Bear_, which attracts all the more attention that it is one of those that never sets, being at a less distance from the pole than the latter is from the horizon. Every one knows the seven brilliant stars that form this constellation. The four in the rectangle and the three in a curved line at once call to mind the form of a chariot, especially one of antique build. It is this resemblance, no doubt, that has obtained for the constellation the name of "the Chariot" that it bears among many people. Among the ancient Gauls it was "Arthur's Chariot." In France it is "David's Chariot," and in England it goes by the name of "King Charles' Wain," and by that of the "Plough." The latter name was in vogue, too, among the Latins (_Plaustrum_), and the three stars were three oxen, from whence it would appear that they extended the idea to all the seven stars, and at last called them the _seven_ oxen, _septem-triones_, from whence the name sometimes used for the north--septentrional. The Greeks also called it the Chariot ([Greek: Hamaxa]), and the same word seems to have stood sometimes for a plough. It certainly has some resemblance to this instrument.