A BROKEN handled duplicate of the old fashioned tin dipper that used to hang by the well, lies twinkling in the northern half of the sky. This Dipper is ornamented with seven bright stars although a telescope or a field-glass will disclose dozens more encrusted on its handle and a starry phosphorescence in its bowl.
This Dipper may be found near the zenith, almost overhead, during the early evening hours in April and May; it is west of the North Star in July and August, near the northern horizon in October and November and in the east during January and February.
Although every twenty-four hours this Sky Dipper swings completely around the North Star, half of the journey is invisible because the strong light of the sun prevents us from seeing the stars in the daytime.
"The fiery sun, when wheeling up heaven's height,
Obscures the stars and the moon's holy light."
—Leonidas.
The stars, however, rise two hours earlier every month and this brings the Dipper, when observed during the early hours of darkness, to different positions in the sky during the different seasons.
Since this conspicuous star figure travels completely around the arctic circle of the heavens in twenty-four hours, the space within this circle has been likened to a great star clock, the two outer stars on the bowl—called "The Pointers"—forming the hour hand which always points toward the center of the clock marked by the North Star. With a little attention anyone may learn to judge the time by this timepiece and wager as much on it as the Carrier in Shakespeare's King Henry IV who looks up as he enters the Inn Yard with his lantern and remarks:
"Heigh-ho! An't be not four by the day, I'll be hanged, Charles' Wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse is not packed."
The Big Dipper is called "Charles' Wain" in England, the bowl being the wagon or wain, and the stars on the handle, the horses. It is also called "David's chariot" and the "Plowshare." In Rome these seven bright stars were called "Septentriones" or "The Seven Plowing Oxen"; in Greece, simply the "Triones."