slope can be readily discerned when the constellation is due south. At
the time to which I have referred the constellation Orion was
considerably below the equator, and instead of standing nearly upright
when due south high above the horizon, as now in our northern latitudes,
he rose upright above the south-eastern horizon. The resemblance to a
giant figure must then have been even more striking than it is at
present (except in high northern latitudes, where Orion, when due south,
is just fully above the horizon). The giant Orion has long been
identified with Nimrod; and those who recognise the antitypes of the Ark
in Argo, of the old dragon in Draco, and of the first and second Adams
in the kneeling Hercules defeated by the serpent and the upright
Ophiuchus triumphant over the serpent, may, if they so please, find in
the giant Orion, the Two Dogs, the Hare, and the Bull (whom Orion is
more directly dealing with), the representations of Nimrod, that mighty
hunter before the Lord, his hunting dogs, and the animals he hunted.
Pegasus, formerly called the Horse, was regarded in very ancient times
as the Steed of Nimrod.

In modern astronomy the constellations no longer have the importance
which once attached to them. They afford convenient means for naming the
stars, though I think many observers would prefer the less attractive
but more business-like methods adopted by Piazzi and others, according
to which a star rejoices in no more striking title than 'Piazzi XIIIh.
273,' or 'Struve, 2819.' They still serve, however, to teach beginners
the stars, and probably many years will pass before even exact astronomy
dismisses them altogether to the limbo of discarded symbolisms. It is,
indeed, somewhat singular that astronomers find it easier to introduce
new absurdities among the constellations than to get rid of these old
ones. The new and utterly absurd figures introduced by Bode still remain
in many charts despite such inconvenient names as _Honores Frederici_,
_Globum AErostaticum_ and _Machina Pneumatica_; and I have very little
doubt that a new constellation, if it only had a specially inconvenient
title, would be accepted. But when Francis Baily tried to simplify the
heavens by removing many of Bode's absurd constellations, he was abused
by many as violently as though he had proposed the rejection of the
Newtonian system. I myself tried a small measure of reform in the three
first editions of my 'Library Atlas,' but have