FOOTNOTES:
[6] The French trillion is equivalent to the English billion, or a million times a million (1,000,000,000,000).—J. E. G.
[7] The Chinese had designated them all, it is true, at the same epoch, but their groups as well as their denominations are absolutely different from ours, and do not appear to have exercised any influence on the foundations of astronomical history. It was another world, other methods, other inspirations, as if Asia and Europe formed two distinct planets. A distinguished author, M. Schlegel, published in 1875 a Chinese Uranography, which is composed of 670 asterisms, and of which he believes he can trace back the origin to 17,000 years before our era. His argument is not convincing, and it seems to me that the origin of the astronomy of the Celestial Empire can not be very much anterior to the reign of the Emperor Hoang-Ti—that is to say, to the Twenty-seventh Century before our era—and would go back at furthest to the time of Fou-Hi that is to say, to the Twenty-ninth Century. It was about the same epoch—the Twenty-eighth Century before our era—that the Egyptians, observing Sirius, the early rising of which announced the inundation of the Nile, formed their canicular year of 365 days.
[8] More correctly, from 2.3 magnitude to 3.5 magnitude.—J. E. G.
[9] The author possesses in the Museum of the Observatory at Juvisy a Japanese executioner’s sword, on the guard of which this constellation is engraved. Was it believed that the souls of executed criminals were sent there?
[10] See Astronomical Myths, based on Flammarion’s History of the Heavens. By J. F. Blake. London, 1876.
[11] That is, to the naked eye; it never descends below the tenth magnitude, and always remains visible in a 3-inch telescope.—J. E. G.
[12] A constellation wrongly attributed by Arago and others to Hevelius. It is found on the sphere of Eudoxus.
[13] Constellations incorrectly attributed to Tycho Brahe. The first is given by Eratosthenes, the second dates from the Emperor Adrian.
[14] Especially those which are absolutely superfluous, and occupy places stolen from the ancient constellations, like the Heart of Charles II, the Fox and Goose, the Lizard, the Sextant, the Shield of Sobieski, Mount Mænalus, the Reindeer, the Solitaire, the Messier, the Bull of Poniatowski, the Honors of Frederick, the Harp, the Telescope, the Mural Circle, the Air Balloon, the Electrical Machine, the Printer’s Workshop, and the Cat. I know, however, with reference to this last animal, that Lalande wrote: “I love cats! I adore cats! I may be pardoned for having placed one in the sky after my sixty years of assiduous labors.” But the illustrious astronomer had no necessity for this plea in order that his name should remain inscribed in letters of gold on the tablets of Urania. The Heart of Charles II is but the flattery of a courtier; the Shield of Sobieski, the Bull of Poniatowski, should fall from the sky; the Messier is but a play on words which makes the celestial flocks guarded by a pastor whose name is the same as that of the prolific hunter of comets, Messier. As for the Honors of Frederick, they usurp an unmerited place, for, in order to make room for them, Andromeda has been obliged to draw in her arm, which she had stretched out there for three thousand years.