Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/79

 Thus Perseus holds Algol on the Gorgon's head which flashes with "fiery snakes,"—his right hand brandishes a glittering sword, his armor is decked with stars, while the 'dust' he raised swirls in a milky path from the zenith to the trees on the horizon.

In the Sword Hand of Perseus the ancient Greeks saw the gleam of the sword borrowed from Mercury, a diamond-bladed, diamond-hilted sword, carved from a single diamond, but modern astronomers searching in the same spot discovered a more wonderful object for, through the eye of a telescope, the two nebulous patches of hazy light on the Sword Hand were resolved into countless stars! These star clusters are interesting even in a field-glass although higher powers disclose them as veritable sun-bursts of diamond-like stars. The two clusters may be located about half-way between Mirfak, the brightest star in the Segment of Perseus, and the "W" of Cassiopeia.

One might at first glance take these crowded masses of stars as an example where the great force of gravity had worked not wisely but too well; but it is only the unbelievable distance that our earth lies from these stars which makes them look so closely clustered together. Would the brighter naked-eye stars which bespangle our sky look like this—a glimmering spot—from so vast a distance? To know that our solar cluster of stars is not the only cluster in the heavens is enough to take a little of the conceit out of man's colossal opinion of himself.

A good meteor shower appears in the vicinity of the constellation of Perseus about the 10th of August. These meteors are best seen around three o'clock in the morning and have been recorded as appearing as far back as 811 This would seem to reasonably assure the annual reappearance of the spectacle but since the number of meteors is steadily decreasing there is a time in the future when it will cease to be. These meteors are popularly known as the "Tears of Saint Lawrence," mentioned as the "fiery