Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/523

Rh Plutarch claimed that the Galaxy was a nebulous circle which constantly appears on the sky, and, according to Blake, certain Pythagoreans asserted that when Phaēton lit the universe, one star which escaped from its proper place set light to the whole space it passed over in its circular course, and so formed the Milky Way.

Other philosophers imagined that the Galactic Circle was where the sun had been at the beginning of the world.

It was also believed that the Milky Way was but an optical phenomenon, produced by the reflection of the sun's rays from the vault of the sky as from a mirror, and comparable with the effects seen in the rainbow, and illuminated clouds.

Mythology attributed the Milky Way to the milk dropped from Juno's breasts, while she was suckling Hercules.

In Egypt Isis was said to have formed the Milky Way by the dropping of innumerable wheat heads.

There are many interesting legends concerning this celebrated pathway in the skies.

The ancients painted on the great canvas of the night skies many pastoral scenes, thus depicting features of daily life in the far east. Among the stars, as we have seen, we find the figure of a shepherd with his dogs watching his flocks, and near by twines a river, the Milky Way.

According to a French tale, the stars in the Milky Way are lights held by angel spirits to show mortals the way to heaven.

The Greeks called the Galaxy "the road to the Palace of Heaven." Along this road stand the palaces of the illustrious gods, while the common people of the skies live on either side of them.

The Algonquin Indians believed that this was the Path of Souls leading to the villages in the sun. As the spirits travel along the pathway their blazing camp-fires may be seen as bright stars.

Other Indian nations believed that the souls of the