Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/106

 is a coarse cluster of 7th and 8th magnitude stars, resolvable by an opera-glass and easily located by a little star on either side. In the mythology of Greece, this constellation represents the gigantic sea-crab which Juno sent to bite the toes of Hercules when he was struggling in the marshes with the hundred-headed hydra. Naturally, Hercules stamped his foot down on the petty annoyance, which so offended Juno that she set the creature among the stars.

It is the "misty spot," however, that has always attracted the eyes of men. The Chaldeans thought that the dim light came from a hole in the floor of heaven, and that it could be no other than the "gate of men" through which souls descended into human bodies. It has also been regarded as the Manger in which Christ was born and the stars on either side were called Aselli, or Little Asses. The "Manger" is now known to hold 363 telescopic stars, and is historically interesting because it afforded one of the earliest telescopic proofs that there were hosts of stars in the heavens besides those visible to the unaided eye. Galileo, who first resolved its light into stars, was able to count forty small stars in this spot, and his telescope was no better than the field-glass of today, if we may indeed make such a comparison.

In ancient times, Præsepe, the Manger, was an infallible weather sign, for if there was the slightest moisture in the air, its faint light was invisible. If the moisture was not sufficient to also obscure the two stars on either side, only light showers of rain might be expected, but if the two stars were also hidden, there would be a very bad storm. If the two stars and the Manger were