the constellations, and at one period or another in its history
employed them in some symbolic or representative capacity. As handled
by the Greeks from prehistoric times, the constellation myths became
the very soul of poetry. The imagination of that wonderful race
idealized the principal star groups so effectively that the figures
and traditions thus attached to them have, for civilized mankind,
displaced all others, just as Greek art in its highest forms stands
without parallel and eclipses every rival. The Romans translated no
heroes and heroines of the mythical period of their history to the
sky, and the deified Cæsars never entered that lofty company, but the
heavens are filled with the early myths of the Greeks. Herakles
nightly resumes his mighty labors in the stars; Zeus, in the form of
the white ``Bull,'' Taurus, bears the fair Europa on his back through
the celestial waves; Andromeda stretches forth her shackled arms in
the star-gemmed ether, beseeching aid; and Perseus, in a blaze of
diamond armor, revives his heroic deeds amid sparkling clouds of
stellar dust. There, too, sits Queen Cassiopeia in her dazzling chair,
while the Great King, Cepheus, towers gigantic over the pole.
Professor Young has significantly remarked that a great number of the
constellations are connected in some way or other with the Argonautic
Expedition -- that strangely fascinating legend of earliest Greek
story which has never lost its charm for mankind. In view of all this,
we may well congratulate ourselves that the constellations will
outlast our time and the time of countless generations to follow us;
and yet they are very far from being eternal. Let us now study some of
the effects of the stellar motions upon them.

We begin with the familiar figure of the ``Great Dipper.'' He who has
not drunk inspiration from its celestial bowl is not yet admitted to
the circle of Olympus. This figure is made up of seven conspicuous