Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/204

144 Burritt depicts the creature with the two front paws immersed in the River, and the constellation lies between this great stream and the flood which pours forth from the jar of the Water Bearer into the gaping mouth of the Southern Fish. Cetus is thus situated appropriately in that region of the sky known to the ancients as "the Sea," alluded to in a previous chapter, a part of the sky where marine symbols abound.

It has been suggested that these constellations, which might well be designated "the marine group," arranged here together, might have reference to the rainy season, or a period of flood when the sun was in this region of the heavens.

Brown points out the interesting fact that the southern heavens are generally given over to creatures of ill significance. Here we find Hydra, Scorpius, Lupus, Corvus, Canis Major, and Cetus. Design rather than chance seems evident in this arrangement.

In the 17th century Cetus was considered to be a symbol of Jonah's whale, and also of Job's leviathan. Dr. Seiss regards it as the old Serpent, which is the Devil and Satan.

A popular name for this constellation is "the Easy Chair," as the arrangement of its stars suggests to the imaginative a reclining chair. A mutilated hand is also seen by some in the star group forming the head of the creature. The five stars in the head of the whale, α, γ, ξ, μ, and λ, form a fairly regular pentagon, which serves as a ready means of identifying the constellation.

The arrangement of the stars in Cetus permits of many geometrical figures being formed. The stars ζ, θ, τ, η, and ι Ceti form an inverted dipper, a little larger but otherwise not unlike the so-called "Milk Dipper" in the contstellation Sagittarius.

The body of the creature is kite-shaped, and the entire constellation somewhat resembles the figure of the prehistoric ichthyosaurus.

Although Cetus is the largest constellation, it contains