Though Capricornus is a small and poor constellation when viewed with the naked eye, the early astrologers thought more of him than all the other constellations of the zodiac put together.
While the stars of Capricornus do not look anything like a sea-goat, he can be easily found by drawing a line from Vega in Lyra to Altair in Aquila and producing it until you come to the zodiac as shown in [Fig. 179].
The two brightest stars of Capricornus are in his head. One of these stars is a naked eye double, but to many people it will seem merely a single star. As a matter of fact it is a fine sight test, for it takes a pair of mighty good eyes to separate them. Another bright star of the sea-goat is in his fishlike tail.
We have journeyed clear around the great circle which the Sun travels every year, and we are back again to Aquarius, the constellation we started from, having covered all the constellations of the zodiac.
The Signs of the Zodiac.—Where the signs of the zodiac are used in almanacs they do not mean the constellations of the same name at all, but the spaces or parts of the great circle which form the zodiac.
Two thousand years ago the constellations and the signs of the same name were in the same spaces or parts of the zodiac, but the signs, by precession, have shifted over one space to the west since that time, while the constellations have of course remained unchanged, and this has made a good deal of confusion.
It’s a pretty skillet of fish, this mixing of the signs and constellations of the zodiac, but you will get used to it just as easily as you get used to carrying water when in camp or washing dishes.
How to Read the Almanac.—If you were asked to find the date of any day of any month of the year you would simply look at a calendar and find it in a jiffy.
Now, long before calendars came into general use the almanac was freely consulted, not only for learning days and dates, but for much more useful information, such as finding the dates of eclipses, the beginning of seasons, the rising and setting of the Sun, Moon and planets and the conjunctions and oppositions of these bodies, planting potatoes and the year the father of your country was born.