he same points of the Heavens, in front of the same
constellations, which are rendered invisible by his light. We know that
the stars are at a fixed position from the Earth, whatever their
distance, and that if we do not see them at noon as at midnight, it is
simply because they are extinguished by the dazzling light of the orb of
day. With the aid of a telescope it is always possible to see the more
brilliant of them.

The Zodiac is the zone of stars traversed by the Sun in the course of a
year. This word is derived from the Greek _Zodiakos_, which signifies
"animal," and this etymology arose because most of the figures traced
on this belt of stars represent animals. The belt is divided into twelve
parts that are called the twelve Signs of the Zodiac, also named by the
ancients the "Houses of the Sun," since the Sun visits one of them in
each month. These are the signs, with the primitive characters that
distinguish them: the Ram [Aries], the Bull [Taurus], the Twins
[Gemini], the Crab [Cancer], the Lion [Leo], the Virgin [Virgo], the
Balance [Libra], the Scorpion [Scorpio], the Archer [Sagittarius], the
Goat [Capricorn], the Water-Carrier [Aquarius], the Fishes [Pisces]. The
sign [Aries] represents the horns of the Ram, [Taurus] the head of the
Bull, and so on.

If you will now follow me into the Houses of the Sun you will readily
recognize them again, provided you have a clear picture of the principal
stars of the Northern Heavens. First, you see the Ram, the initial sign
of the Zodiac; because at the epoch at which the actual Zodiac was
fixed, the Sun entered this sign at the vernal equinox, and the equator
crossed the ecliptic at this point. This constellation, in which the
horns of the Ram (third magnitude) are the brightest, is situated
between Andromeda and the Pleiades. Two thousand years ago, the Ram was
regarded as the symbol of spring; but owing to the secular movement of
the precession of the equinoxes, the Sun is no longer there on March 21:
he is in the Fishes.

To the left, or east of the Ram, we find the Bull, the head of which
forms a triangle in which burns Aldebaran, of first magnitude, a
magnificent red star that marks the right eye; and the Hyades,
scintillating pale and trembling, on its forehead. The timid Pleiades,
as we have seen, veil themselves on the shoulder of the Bull--a
captivating cluster, of which six stars can be counted with the unaided
eye, while several hundred are discovered wi