o be understood as
picturing a certain series of events, interpreted and expanded by a
poetical writer into a complete narrative. Without venturing to insist
on so heterodox a notion, I may remark as an odd coincidence that
probably such a picture or sculpture would have shown the smoke
ascending from the Altar which I have already described, and in this
smoke there would be shown the bow of Sagittarius; which, interpreted
and expanded in the way I have mentioned, might have accounted for the
'bow set in the clouds, for a token of a covenant.' It is noteworthy
that all the remaining constellations forming the southern limit of the
old star-domes or charts, were watery ones--the Southern Fish, over
which Aquarius is pouring a quite unnecessary stream of water, the Great
Sea Monster towards which in turn flow the streams of the River
Eridanus. The equator, too, was then occupied along a great part of its
length by the great sea serpent Hydra, which reared its head above the
equator, very probably indicated then by a water horizon, for nearly all
the signs below it were then watery. At any rate, as the length of Hydra
then lay horizontally above the Ship, whose masts reached it, we may
well believe that this part of the picture of the heavens showed a
sea-horizon and a ship, the great sea serpent lying along the horizon.
On the back of Hydra is the Raven, which again may be supposed by those
who accept the theory mentioned above to have suggested the raven which
went forth to and fro from the ark. He is close enough to the rigging of
Argo to make an easy journey of it. The dove, however, must not be
confounded with the modern constellation Columba, though this is placed
(suitably enough) near the Ark. We must suppose the idea of the dove was
suggested by a bird pictured in the rigging of the celestial ship. The
sequence in which the constellations came above the horizon as the year
went round corresponded very satisfactorily with the theory, fanciful
though this seem to some. First Aquarius pouring streams of water, the
three fishes (Pisces and Piscis australis), and the great sea monster
Cetus, showing how the waters prevailed over the highest hills, then the
Ark sailing on the waters, a little later the Raven (Corvus), the man
descending from the ark and offering a gift on the Altar, and last the
Bow set amid the clouds.

The theory just described may not meet with much favour. But wilder
theories of the story of the del