Life is girt all round with a zodiac of sciences, the contributions of men who have perished to add their point of light to our sky.... These road-makers on every hand enrich us. We must extend the area of life and multiply our relations. We are as much gainers by finding a property in the old earth as by acquiring a new planet.
"There's another rendering now; but still one text. All sorts of men in one kind of world, you see. Dodge again! here comes Queequeg--all tattooing--looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself. What says the Cannibal? As I live he's comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone; thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I suppose, as the old women talk Surgeon's Astronomy in the back country. And by Jove, he's found something there in the vicinity of his thigh--I guess it's Sagittarius, or the Archer. No: he don't know what to make of the doubloon; he takes it for an old button off some king's trowsers. But, aside again! here comes that ghost-devil, Fedallah; tail coiled out of sight as usual, oakum in the toes of his pumps as usual. What does he say, with that look of his? Ah, only makes a sign to the sign and bows himself; there is a sun on the coin--fire worshipper, depend upon it. Ho! more and more. This way comes Pip--poor boy! would he had died, or I; he's half horrible to me. He too has been watching all of these interpreters--myself included--and look now, he comes to read, with that unearthly idiot face. Stand away again and hear him. Hark!"
It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra.
Besides the purely literary works there were others of the most varied nature, including collections of letters, partly official, partly private. Among them the most interesting are the letters of Khammurabi, which have been edited by L. W. King. Astronomy and astrology, moreover, occupy a conspicuous place. Astronomy was of old standing in Babylonia, and the standard work on the subject, written from an astrological point of view, which was translated into Greek by Berossus, was believed to go back to the age of Sargon of Akkad. The zodiac was a Babylonian invention of great antiquity; and eclipses of the sun as well as of the moon could be foretold. Observatories were attached to the temples, and reports were regularly sent by the astronomers to the king. The stars had been numbered and named at an early date, and we possess tables of lunar longitudes and observations of the phases of Venus. In Seleucid and Parthian times the astronomical reports were of a thoroughly scientific character; how far the advanced knowledge and method they display may reach back we do not yet know. Great attention was naturally paid to the calendar, and we find a week of seven and another of five days in use. The development of astronomy implies considerable progress in mathematics; it is not surprising, therefore, that the Babylonians should have invented an extremely simple method of ciphering or have discovered the convenience of the duodecimal system. The _ner_ of 600 and the _sar_ of 3600 were formed from the _soss_ or unit of 60, which corresponded with a degree of the equator. Tablets [v.03 p.0108] of squares and cubes, calculated from 1 to 60, have been found at Senkera, and a people who were acquainted with the sun-dial, the clepsydra, the lever and the pulley, must have had no mean knowledge of mechanics. A crystal lens, turned on the lathe, was discovered by Layard at Nimrud along with glass vases bearing the name of Sargon; this will explain the excessive minuteness of some of the writing on the Assyrian tablets, and a lens may also have been used in the observation of the heavens. Entry: VII
One mean lunar year of twelve lunations measures very nearly 354 days 8 hrs. 48 min. 34 sec.; and one Hindu solar year measures 365 days 6 hrs. 12 min. 30 sec. according to Aryabhata, or slightly more according to the other two authorities. Consequently, the beginning of a lunar year pure and simple would be always travelling backwards through the solar year, by about eleven days on each occasion, and would in course of time recede entirely through the solar year, as it does in the Mahommedan calendar. The Hindus prevent that in the following manner. The length of the Hindu astronomical solar month, measured by the _samkrantis_ of the sun, its successive entrances into the signs of the zodiac, ranges, in accordance with periodical variations in the speed of the sun, from about 29 days 7 hrs. 38 min. up to about 31 days 15 hrs. 28 min. The length of the _amanta_ or synodic lunar month ranges, in accordance with periodical variations in the speed of the moon and the sun, from about 29 days 19 hrs. 30 min. down to about 29 days 7 hrs. 20 min. Consequently, it happens from time to time that there are two new-moon conjunctions, so that two lunations begin, in one astronomical solar month, between two _samkrantis_ of the sun, while the sun is in one and the same sign of the zodiac, and there is no _samkranti_ in the lunation ending with the second new-moon: when this is the case, there are two lunations to which the same name is applicable, and so there is an additional or intercalated month, in the sense that a name is repeated: thus, when two new-moons occur while the sun is in Mesha, the lunation ending with the first of them, during which the sun has entered Mesha, is Chaitra; the next lunation, in which there is no _samkranti_, is Vaisakha, because it begins when the sun is in Mesha; and the next lunation after that is again Vaisakha, for the same reason, and also because the sun enters Vrishabha in the course of it: in these circumstances, the first of the two Vaisakhas is called Adhika-Vaisakha, "the additional or intercalated Vaisakha," and the second is called simply Vaisakha, or sometimes Nija-Vaisakha, "the natural Vaisakha." On the other hand, it occasionally happens, in an autumn or winter month, that there are two _samkrantis_ of the sun in one and the same _amanta_ or synodic lunar month, between two new-moon conjunctions, so that no lunation begins between the two _samkrantis_: when this is the case, there is one lunation to which two names are applicable, and there is a suppressed month, in the sense that a name is omitted: thus, if the sun enters both Dhanus and Makara during one synodic lunation, that lunation is Margasira, because the sun was in Vrischika at the first moment of it and enters Dhanus in the course of it;[2] the next lunation is Magha, because the sun is in Makara by the time when it begins and will enter Kumbha in the course of it; and the name Pausha, between Margasira and Magha, is omitted. When a month is thus suppressed, there is always one intercalated month, and sometimes two, in the same Chaitradi lunar year, so that the lunar year never contains less than twelve months, and from time to time consists of thirteen months. There are normally seven intercalated months, rising to eight when a month is suppressed, in 19 solar years, which equal very nearly 235 lunations;[3] and there is never less than one year without an intercalated month between two years with intercalated months, except when there is only one such month in a year in which a month is suppressed; then there is always an intercalated month in the next year also. The suppression of a month takes place at intervals of 19 years and upwards, regarding which no definite statement can conveniently be made here. It may be added that an intercalated Chaitra or Karttika takes the place of the ordinary month as the first month of the year; an intercalated month is not rejected for that purpose, though it is tabooed from the religious and auspicious points of view. Entry: A
DUPUIS, CHARLES FRANÇOIS (1742-1809), French scientific writer and politician, was born of poor parents at Trye-Château, between Gisors and Chaumont, on the 26th of October 1742. His father, who was a teacher, instructed him in mathematics and land-surveying. While he was engaged in measuring a tower by a geometrical method, the duc de la Rochefoucauld met him and was so taken by the lad's intelligence that he gave him a bursary in the college of Harcourt. Dupuis made such rapid progress that, at the age of twenty-four, he was appointed professor of rhetoric at the college of Lisieux, where he had previously passed as a licentiate of theology. In his hours of leisure he studied law, and in 1770 he abandoned the clerical career and became an advocate. Two university discourses which he delivered in Latin were printed, and laid the foundation of his literary fame. His chief attention, however, was devoted to mathematics, the object of his early studies; and for some years he attended the astronomical lectures of Lalande, with whom he formed an intimate friendship. In 1778 he constructed a telegraph on the principle suggested by Guillaume Amontons (q.v.), and employed it in keeping up a correspondence with his friend Jean Fortin in the neighbouring village of Bagneux, until the Revolution made it necessary to destroy his machine to avoid suspicion. About the same time Dupuis formed his theory as to the origin of the Greek months. He endeavoured to account for the want of any resemblance between the groups of stars and the names by which they are known, by supposing that the zodiac was, for the people who invented it, a sort of calendar at once astronomical and rural, and that the figures chosen for the constellations were such as would naturally suggest the agricultural operations of the season. It seemed only necessary, therefore, to discover the clime and the period in which the constellation of Capricorn must have arisen with the sun on the day of the summer solstice, and the vernal equinox must have occurred under Libra. It appeared to Dupuis that this clime was Upper Egypt, and that the perfect correspondence between the signs and their significations had existed in that country at a period of between fifteen and sixteen thousand years before the present time; that it had existed only there; and that this harmony had been disturbed by the effect of the precession of the equinoxes. He therefore ascribed the invention of the signs of the zodiac to the people who then inhabited Upper Egypt or Ethiopia. This was the basis on which Dupuis established his mythological system, and endeavoured to explain fabulous history and the whole system of the theogony and theology of the ancients. Dupuis published several detached parts of his system in the _Journal des savants_ for 1777 and 1781. These he afterwards collected and published, first in Lalande's _Astronomy_, and then in a separate volume in 4to, 1781, under the title of _Mémoire sur l'origine des constellations et sur l'explication de la fable par l'astronomie_. The theory propounded in this memoir was refuted by J.S. Bailly in his _Histoire de l'astronomie_, but, at the same time, with a just acknowledgment of the erudition and ingenuity exhibited by the author. Entry: DUPUIS
EUDOXUS, of Cnidus, Greek savant, flourished about the middle of the 4th century B.C. It is chiefly as an astronomer that his name has come down to us (see ASTRONOMY and ZODIAC). From a life by Diogenes Laërtius, we learn that he studied at Athens under Plato, but, being dismissed, passed over into Egypt, where he remained for sixteen months with the priests of Heliopolis. He then taught physics in Cyzicus and the Propontis, and subsequently, accompanied by a number of pupils, went to Athens. Towards the end of his life he returned to his native place, where he died. Strabo states that he discovered that the solar year is longer than 365 days by 6 hours; Vitruvius that he invented a sun-dial. The _Phaenomena_ of Aratus is a poetical account of the astronomical observations of Eudoxus. Several works have been attributed to him, but they are all lost; some fragments are preserved in the extant [Greek: Tôn Aratou kai Eudoxou phainomenon exêgêseôn biblia tria] of the astronomer Hipparchus (ed. C. Manitius, 1894). According to Aristotle (_Ethics_ x. 2), Eudoxus held that pleasure was the chief good, because (1) all beings sought it and endeavoured to escape its contrary, pain; (2) it is an end in itself, not a relative good. Aristotle, who speaks highly of the sincerity of Eudoxus's convictions, while giving a qualified approval to his arguments, considers him wrong in not distinguishing the different kinds of pleasure and in making pleasure the _summum bonum_. Entry: EUDOXUS
The present names of the lunar months, indicated above, were derived from the _nakshatras_, which are certain conspicuous stars and groups of stars lying more or less along the neighbourhood of the ecliptic. The _nakshatras_ are regarded sometimes as twenty-seven in number, sometimes as twenty-eight, and are grouped in twelve sets of two or three each, beginning, according to the earlier arrangement of the list, with the pair Krittika and Rohini, and including in the sixth place Chitra and Svati, and ending with the triplet Revati, Asvini and Bharani. They are sometimes styled lunar mansions, and are sometimes spoken of as the signs of the lunar zodiac; and it is, no doubt, chiefly in connexion with the moon that they are now taken into consideration. But they mark divisions of the ecliptic: according to one system, twenty-seven divisions, each of 13 degrees 20 minutes; according to two other systems, twenty-seven or twenty-eight unequal divisions, which we need not explain here. The almanacs show the course of the sun through them, as well as the course of the moon; and the course of the sun was marked by them only, before the time when the Hindus began to use the twelve signs of the solar zodiac. So there is nothing exclusively lunar about them. The present names of the lunar months were derived from the _nakshatras_ in the following manner: the full-moon which occurred when the moon was in conjunction with Chitra (the star [alpha] Virginis) was named Chaitri, and the lunar month, which contained the Chaitri full-moon, was named Chaitra; and so on with the others. The present names have superseded another set of names which were at one time in use concurrently with them; these other names are Madhu (= Chaitra), Madhava, Sukra, Suchi, Nabhas, Nabhasya, Isha, Urja (= Karttika), Sahas, Sahasya, Tapas, and Tapasya (= Phalguna): they seem to have marked originally solar season-months of the solar year, rather than lunar months of the lunar year. Entry: I
The following list gives the names of the constellations now usually employed: they are divided into three groups:--north of the zodiac, in the zodiac, south of the zodiac. Those marked with an asterisk have separate articles. Entry: CONSTELLATION
/Whalebone* (1807) /Waxy* (1790) /Sir Hercules< \Penelope (1798) | (1826) \Peri (1823) /Wanderer (1790) /Birdcatcher < \Thalestris (1809) | [++] | /Bob Booty (1804) /Chanticleer (1787) | (1833) |Guiccioli < \Ierne (1790) | \ (1823) \Flight (1809) /Escape (1802) /The Baron[++]< \Young Heroine | (1842) | /Whisker* (1812) /Waxy* (1790) | | /Economist < \Penelope (1798) | | | (1825) \Floranthe (1818) /Octavian (1807) | |Echidna < \Caprice (1797) | \ (1838) | /Blacklock (1814) /Whitelock (1803) | |Miss Pratt < \Coriander mare (1799) | \ (1825) \Gadabout (1812) /Orville[++] (1709) /Stockwell[++]< \Minstrel (1803) |(1849) | /Selim (1802) /Buzzard (1787) | | /Sultan < \Alexander mare (1790) | | | (1816) \Bacchante (1809) /Williamson's Ditto (1800) | | /Glencoe < \Sister to Calomel (1791) | | | (1831) | /Tramp (1810) /Dick Andrews (1797) | | | |Trampoline < \Gohanna mare | | | \ (1825) \Web (1808) /Waxy* (1790) | |Pocahontas < \Penelope (1798) | \ (1837) | /Orville[++] (1799) /Beningbrough (1790) | | /Muley < \Evelina (1791) | | | (1810) \Eleanor*[++] (1798) /Whiskey (1789) | |Marpessa < \Young Giantess (1790) | \ (1830) | /Marmion (1806) /Whiskey (1789) | |Clare < \Young Noisette (1789) | \ (1824) \Harpalice (1814) /Gohanna (1790) Blair | \Amazon (1799) Athol*[++] < /Sorcerer (1796) /Trumpator (1782) (1861) | /Comus < \Young Giantess (1790) | | (1809) \Houghton Lass (1801)/Sir Peter* (1784) | /Humphrey < \Alexina (1788) | | Clinker | /Clinker (1805) /Sir Peter* (1784) | | (1822) |Clinkerina < \Hyale (1797) | | \ (1812) \Pewet (1786) /Tandem (1773) | /Melbourne < \Termagant | | (1834) | /Don Quixote (1784) /Eclipse (1764) | | | /Cervantes < \Grecian Princess (1770) | | | | (1806) \Evelina (1791) /Highflyer (1774) | | |Daughter of < \Termagant | | \ (1825) | /Golumpus (1802) /Gohanna (1790) | | |Daughter of < \Catherine (1795) | | \ (1818) \Daughter of (1810) /Paynator (1791) |Blink Bonny*[+]< \Sister to Zodiac \ (1854) | /Walton (1799) /Sir Peter* (1784) | /Partisan < \Arethusa (1792) | | (1811) \Parasol (1800) /Pot-8-os (1773) | /Gladiator < \Prunella (1788) | | (1833) | /Moses* (1819) /Whalebone* by Waxy* (1807) | | |Pauline < \Gohanna mare | | \ (1826) \Quadrille (1815) /Selim (1802) |Queen Mary < \Canary Bird (1806) \(1843) | /Emilius* (1820) /Orville[++] (1799) | /Plenipote- < \Emily (1810) | | ntiary* \Harriett (1819) /Pericles (1809) |Daughter of < (1831) \Selim mare (1812) \ (1840) | /Whalebone* (1807) /Waxy* (1790) |Myrrha < \Penelope (1798) \ (1830) \Gift (1818) /Young Gohanna (1810) \Sister to Grazier by Sir Peter* (1808) Entry: 3
LEO (THE LION), in astronomy, the fifth sign of the zodiac (q.v.), denoted by the symbol [Omega]. It is also a constellation, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.). According to Greek mythology this constellation is the Nemean lion, which, after being killed by Hercules, was raised to the heavens by Jupiter in honour of Hercules. A part of Ptolemy's Leo is now known as Coma Berenices (q.v.). [alpha] Leonis, also known as Cor Leonis or the Lion's Heart, Regulus, Basilicus, &c., is a very bright star of magnitude 1.23, and parallax 0.02´´, and proper motion 0.27´´ per annum. [gamma] Leonis is a very fine orange-yellow binary star, of magnitudes 2 and 4, and period 400 years. [iota] Leonis is a binary, composed of a 4th magnitude pale yellow star, and a 7th magnitude blue star. The Leonids are a meteoric swarm, appearing in November and radiating from this constellation (see METEOR). Entry: LEO
According to the original constitution of this cycle, the _samvatsaras_ are determined as in the second or mean-sign variety of the 12-years cycle: each _samvatsara_ commences when Jupiter enters a sign of the zodiac with reference to his mean motion and longitude; and it lasts for slightly more than 361.02 days. This variety is traced back in inscriptional records to A.D. 602, and is still used in Northern India. Entry: III
The Hindu calendar, then, is determined by years of two kinds, solar and lunar. For civil purposes, solar years are used in Bengal, including Orissa, and in the Tamil and Malayalam districts of Madras, and lunar years throughout the rest of India. But the lunar year regulates everywhere the general religious rites and festivals, and the details of private and domestic life, such as the selection of auspicious occasions for marriages and for starting on journeys, the choice of lucky moments for shaving, and so on. Consequently, the details of the lunar year are shown even in the almanacs which follow the solar year. On the other hand, certain details of the solar year, such as the course of the sun through the signs and other divisions of the zodiac, are shown in the almanacs which follow the lunar year. We will treat the solar year first, because it governs the lunisolar system, and the explanation of it will greatly simplify the process of explaining the lunar calendar. Entry: I
The solar year is divided into twelve months, in accordance with the successive _samkrantis_ or entrances of the sun into the (sidereal) signs of the zodiac, which, as with us, are twelve in number. The names of the signs in Sanskrit are as follows: Mesha, the ram (Aries); Vrishabha, the bull (Taurus); Mithuna, the pair, the twins (Gemini); Karka, Karkata, Karkataka, the crab (Cancer); Simha, the lion (Leo); Kanya, the maiden (Virgo); Tula, the scales (Libra); Vrischika, the scorpion (Scorpio); Dhanus, the bow (Sagittarius); Makara, the sea-monster (Capricornus); Kumbha, the water-pot (Aquarius); and Mina, the fishes (Pisces). The solar months are known in some parts by the names of the signs or by corrupted forms of them; and these are the best names for them for general use, because they lead to no confusion. But they have elsewhere another set of names, preserving the connexion of them with the lunar months: the Sanskrit forms of these names are Chaitra, Vaisakha, Jyaishtha, Ashadha, Sravana, Bhadrapada, Asvina or Asvayuja, Karttika, Margasira or Margasirsha (also known as Agrahayana), Pausha, Magha, and Phalguna: in some localities these names are used in corrupted forms, and in others vernacular names are substituted for some of them; and, while in some parts the name Chaitra is attached to the month Mesha, in other parts it is attached to the month Mina, and so on throughout the series in each case. The astronomical solar month runs from the moment of one _samkranti_ of the sun to the moment of the next _samkranti_; and, as the signs of the Hindu zodiac are all of equal length, 30 degrees, as with us, while the speed of the sun (the motion of the earth in its orbit round the sun) varies according to the time of the year, the length of the month is variable: the shortest month is Dhanus; the longest is Mithuna. The civil solar month begins with its first civil day, which is determined, in different localities, in the same manner with the first civil day of the Meshadi year, as indicated above. The civil month is of variable length; partly for that reason, partly because of the variation in the length of the astronomical month. No exact equivalents of the civil months, therefore, can be stated; but, speaking approximately, we may say that, while the month Mesha now begins on or closely about 12th April, the beginning of a subsequent month may come as late as the 16th day of the English month in which it falls. Entry: I
It is unnecessary here to give a detailed analysis of the methods of judicial astrology as an art, or directions for the casting of a horoscope, or "nativity," i.e. a map of the heavens at the hour of birth, showing, according to the Ephemeris, the position of the heavenly bodies, from which their influence may be deduced. Each of the twelve signs of the zodiac (q.v.) is credited with its own characteristics and influence, and is the controlling sign of its "house of life." The sign exactly rising at the moment of birth is called the ascendant. The benevolent or malignant influence of each planet, together with the sun and moon, is modified by the sign it inhabits at the nativity; thus Jupiter in one house may indicate riches, fame in another, beauty in another, and Saturn similarly poverty, obscurity or deformity. The calculation is affected by the "aspects," i.e. according as the planets are near or far as regards one another (in conjunction, in semi-sextile, semi-square, sextile, quintile, square, trine, sesqui-quadrate, bi-quintile, opposition or parallel acclination). Disastrous signs predominate over auspicious, and the various effects are combined in a very elaborate and complicated manner. Entry: ASTROLOGY
MARLY-LE-ROI, a village of northern France in the department of Seine-et-Oise, 5 m. N. by W. of Versailles by road. Pop. (1906), 1409. Notwithstanding some fine country houses, Marly is dull and unattractive, and owes all its celebrity to the sumptuous château built towards the end of the 17th century by Louis XIV., and now destroyed. It was originally designed as a simple hermitage to which the king could occasionally retire with a few of his more intimate friends from the pomp of Versailles, but gradually it grew until it became one of the most ruinous extravagances of the Grand Monarque. The central pavilion (inhabited by the king himself) and its twelve subsidiary pavilions were intended to suggest the sun surrounded by the signs of the zodiac. Seldom visited by Louis XV., and wholly abandoned by Louis XVI., it was demolished after the Revolution, its art treasures having previously been dispersed, and the remains now consist of a large basin, the Abreuvoir, a few mouldering ivy-grown walls, some traces of parterres with magnificent trees, the park, and the forest of 8½ sq. m., one of the most pleasant promenades of the neighbourhood of Paris, containing the shooting preserves of the President of the Republic. Entry: MARLY