anco Capac,
ordered the smiths to make a flat plate of fine gold, of oval shape, which
was set up as an image of the Creator (_op. cit._ p. 76). The Inca Mayta
Ccapac, "who despised all created things, including the sun and moon," and
"ordered his people to pay no honour to them," caused the plate to be
renewed which his "great grandfather had put up, fixing it afresh in the
place where it had been before. He rebuilt the 'house of gold' and they
say that he caused things to be placed round the plate, which I have
shown, that it may be seen what these heathens thought." The central
figure on this plate consists of the oval image of the Creator, fig. 48,
_c_. Close to its right are images designated by the text as representing
the sun and morning star. To the left are the moon and the evening star.
Above the oval and touching it, is a group of five stars forming a cross,
with one star in the centre. Below it is a cross figure formed by lines
uniting four stars. In this case, instead of being in the middle, the
fifth star is attached to the lower edge of the oval, which is designated
as "the image of Uiracocha Pacha-Yachachic, the teacher of the World."
Outside of the plate is what appears to be an attempt to explain more
clearly the relative positions of the group of five stars to the oval
plate (fig. 48, _a_). It represents the oval and one star in the centre of
a cross formed by four stars. The question naturally suggests itself
whether the group of five stars forming a cross may not represent the
Southern Cross, popularly called the pole-star of the south and which
consists of four principal stars, one of which is of the first and two of
the second magnitude. This possibility opens out a new field of inquiry,
and calls for the statement of the following facts, which I quote from
Amedee Guillemin's Handbook of Popular Astronomy, edited by J. Norman
Lockyer and revised by Richard A. Proctor.(35)

[Illustration.]

Figure 48.

"In [our] enumeration of the circumpolar constellations of the South, we
have said nothing of the stars situated at the Pole itself. The reason is
simple; there are none deserving mention, and with the exception of one
star in Hydrae, none approach the third magnitude. There is not then, in
the southern sky, any star analogous to Polaris in the northern heavens."
M. Guillemin proceeds to explain, however, that this poverty of the polar