Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/202

 ades, or the twelve sisters which Taurus carries across the sky every winter's evening, are altogether called "The Atlantides." Atlas, by the way, also gave his name to the second largest body of water on earth, the Atlantic Ocean.

Since the Pleiad group may be seen from every civilized country in the world, the stars have a host of legends, songs and stories twined about them. One idea, however, has run like a herald through all these widely separated countries and that is that one of the stars of the Pleiades was lost and that there were originally seven bright stars. Although it is generally agreed that one of the Pleiads was lost, opinions seem to differ as to whether it was Electra or Merope as these two sisters had earthly reasons for sorrow; Merope, for instance, hiding embarrassed because she had married a mortal when all of her sisters had married gods. Another legend claims that it was Pleione, mother of the seven sisters, who was lost. Pickering, taking a practical view, believes that the true "Lost Pleiad" was Pleione, for the spectroscope reveals her star to be a variable star.

To the ancient people of Greece who taught even their children how to tell the time of the day by the position of the sun and what