landscape dissolve and recombine in fresh groupings with the
traveler's progress amid them. But with the stars themselves all in
motion at various speeds and in many directions, the changes occur
more rapidly. Of course, ``rapid'' is here understood in a relative
sense; the wheel of human history to an eye accustomed to the majestic
progression of the universe would appear to revolve with the velocity
of a whirling dynamo. Only the deliberation of geological movements
can be contrasted with the evolution and devolution of the
constellations.

And yet this secular fluctuation of the constellation figures is not
without keen interest for the meditative observer. It is another
reminder of the swift mutability of terrestial affairs. To the passing
glance, which is all that we can bestow upon these figures, they
appear so immutable that they have been called into service to form
the most lasting records of ancient thought and imagination that we
possess. In the forms of the constellations, the most beautiful, and,
in imaginative quality, the finest, mythology that the world has ever
known has been perpetuated. Yet, in a broad sense, this scroll of
human thought imprinted on the heavens is as evanescent as the summer
clouds. Although more enduring than parchment, tombs, pyramids, and
temples, it is as far as they from truly eternizing the memory of what
man has fancied and done.

Before studying the effects that the motions of the stars have had and
will have upon the constellations, it is worth while to consider a
little further the importance of the stellar pictures as archives of
history. To emphasize the importance of these effects it is only
necessary to recall that the constellations register the oldest
traditions of our race. In the history of primeval religions they are