Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 32.djvu/532

514 to represent the celebrated river now known as the Po. It has had different names among different peoples, but the idea of a river, suggested by its long, winding streams of stars, has always been preserved. According to fable, it is the river into which Phaeton fell after his disastrous attempt to drive the chariot of the sun for his father Phœbus, and in which hare-brained adventure he narrowly missed burning the



world up. The imaginary river starts from the brilliant star Rigel, in the left foot of Orion, and flows in a broad upward bend toward the west; then it turns in a southerly direction until it reaches the bright star Gamma (&gamma;), where it bends sharply to the north, and then quickly sweeps off to the west once more, until it meets the group of stars marking the head of Cetus. Thence it runs south, gradually turning