Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/61

Rh (the Phœnician barks), to whom the goddess of Sais had lent the frightful head of Medusa to turn all her enemies into stone with terror. Josephus wrote that in his day the inhabitants of Joppa showed the links and remains of the chain that bound Andromeda to the rock, and the bones of the sea monster.

Burritt suggests that the fable of Andromeda might mean that the maiden was courted by some monster of a sea captain who attempted to carry her away, but was prevented by another more gallant and successful rival.

Maunder claims that in the 12th chapter of the Apocalypse there is an allusion to what cannot be doubted are the constellations Andromeda, Cetus, and Eridanus: "And the serpent cast out of his mouth after the woman, water as a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the stream." Andromeda is always represented as a woman in distress, and the sea monster has always been understood to be her persecutor, and from his mouth pours forth the stream Eridanus.

The constellation Andromeda presents a beautiful appearance rising in the eastern sky in the early evening during the months of autumn. Low over the hills twinkle her chain of stars, sweeping down in a long graceful curve from the Great Square of Pegasus, like tiny lamps swinging from an invisible wire, a chain of gold with which heroic Perseus holds in check his winged steed.

Astronomically speaking, the great feature of interest in the constellation is the famous nebula, the so-called "Queen of the Nebulæ," or Al Sufi's "Little Cloud," said to have been known as far back as 905. In the West it seems to have been first observed by Simon Marius, Dec. 15, 1612. It is the only naked eye nebula, and according to Marius it resembles "the diluted light from the flame of a candle seen through horn." An arc light glimpsed through a dense fog is also descriptive of its