e would
not look upon her, lest he, too, be turned to stone; but, guided
by the reflection in the buckler, smote off her head, carried it
high over Libya, the dropping blood turning to serpents, which
have infested those deserts ever since.

[Illustration: Fig. 67.--Circumpolar Constellations. Always visible.
In this position.--January 20th, at 10 o'clock; February 4th, at
9 o'clock; and February 19th, at 8 o'clock.]

The human mind has always been ready to deify and throne in the
skies the heroes that labor for others. Both Perseus and Hercules
are divine by one parent, and human by the other. They go up and
down the earth, giving deliverance to captives, and breaking every
yoke. They also seek to purge away all evil; they slay dragons,
gorgons, devouring monsters, cleanse the foul places of earth,
and one of them so wrestles with death as to win a victim from his
grasp. Finally, by [Page 201] an ascension in light, they go up to
be in light forever. They are not ideally perfect. They right wrong
by slaying wrong-doers, rather than by being crucified themselves;
they are just murderers; but that only plucks the fruit from the
tree of evil. They never attempted to infuse a holy life. They
punished rather than regenerated. It must be confessed, also, that
they were not sinless. But they were the best saviors the race could
imagine, and are examples of that perpetual effort of the human mind
to incarnate a Divine Helper who shall labor and die for the good of
men.

[Page 202]
[Illustration: Fig. 68.--Algol is on the Meridian, 51 deg. South of
Pole.--At 10 o'clock, December 7th; 9 o'clock, December 22d; 8
o'clock, January 5th.]

_Equatorial Constellations._

If we turn our backs on Polaris on the 10th of November, at 10
o'clock in the evening, and look directly overhead, we shall see
the beautiful constellation of Andromeda. Together with the square
of Pegasus, it makes another enormous dipper. The star a Alpheratz
is in her face, the three at the left cross her breast. b and the
two above mark the girdle of her loins, and g is in the foot. Perseus
is near enough for help; and Cetus, the sea-monster, is far enough
away to do no harm. Below, and east of Andromeda, is the Ram of
the golden fleece, recognizable by the three stars in an acute
triangle. The brightest is called Arietis, or Hamel. East of this
are the Pleiades, and the V-shaped Hyades in Taurus, or the Bull.
The Pleiades rise about 9 o'clock on the eveni