New Hampshire Statesman

MISCELLANY.
For the New-Hampshire Statesman.
OBSERVATIONS on the Poetical rising and setting of the Stars and Planets; with some Remarks on Calendars or Almanacks, &c.

The rising and setting of the stars and planets may be considered in two respects; either in relation to the horizon only, or to the sun and horizon: the first, which is usually meant in common speech, is easily understood; the stars and planets are properly said to rise, when, by the rotation of the earth, they appear to come above the horizon; and to set, when they appear to go below it: it is obvious that, in this sense, to those who live in a right sphere, all the stars rise and set every day: to those also that live in an oblique sphere, all the stars which are not within their arctick circle, rise and set every day. There are other risings and settings of the fixed stars, by which the ancient Poets, and writers of Natural history, or of agriculture, point out the seasons of the year; and these relate to the sun, as well as to the horizon.

If a star rise at the same time the sun does, the rising is said to be cosmical ;* so called, as if it rose with the morning of the world : if a star sets at sun rise, it is said to set cosmically. If a star or planet rise at sun set, its rising is said to be acronycal.t that is, at the beginning of night; and in this circumstance the star or planet is often said to be acronycal. and shines all night: a star that sets with the sun, is said to set acronychally.

When a star or planet is very near the sun, it becomes invisible, by reason of the superior brightness of that luminary; the sun does not long continue to hide the same stars; but, by his apparent diurnal progress in the ecliptic, approaches every day nearer to those stars that are eastward from him; and leaves those that are westward, and gets every day farther off from them.

The light of the sun not only renders those stars invisible that are very near him, but also those that are at a considerable distance from him; and this distance is varied, according to the magnitude and brightness of the stars: thus, stars of the first magnitude, may be seen in stronger twilight, and nearer the sun, than those of the second; those of the second nearer than those of the third, &c. Some of the planets, as Venus, Jupiter and the Moon, may be seen nearer the sun than any of the fixed stars can. The smallest stars cannot be seen in the evening, before the twilight is quite ended, nor in the morning after the twilight begins to appear ; that is, when the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon: those of the sixth magnitude, require the sun to be depressed 17 degrees below the horizon; and so on, they require less and less depression, till we come to stars of the first magnitude; which, when on that side of the heaven where the sun is, require he should be but 12 degrees below the horizon to render them visible. Mars and Saturn must have a depression of the sun of 11 degrees, Jupiter and Mercury of about 10 degrees, Venus not above 5 degrees, and she may often be seen in bright sun-shine.

When the sun is come so near a star as to render it invisible, that star is said to set heliacally: when a star, that, by reason of its nearness to the sun, has been for some time invisible, again comes into view, by the sun's getting to a greater distance, it is said to rise heliacally, Thus we see setting heliacally is being immersed in the rays of the sun, and heliacally rising, is getting clear out of them. It would be a more proper expression to call the first of these the appearance, the other the occultation of a star.

The heliacal rising or setting is most conspicuous in those stars that are near the ecliptic, or not very far distant from that path in which the sun appears to make his annual progress; accordingly, ancient writers generally marked the times of the year by such stars as are within the tropics, or not very far from them.

The ancient Greek astronomers, in imitation of the Egyptians and Chaldeans, published Calendars or Diaries, in which they noted the rising and setting of some of the principal stars: by which they generally meant the heliacal rising, or the emersion of the stars out of the rays of the sun, so that they first appeared in the east before sun-rise; or the heliacal setting, that is, their being overtaken by the sun. so as to become invisible by his being so near; this they did in order to direct their countrymen to the proper seasons for plowing, sowing, and other parts of husbandry, and to point out to the mariner the safest times for sailing; they gave also prognosticks of the wind and weather, not, says one of them, that they thought the changes upon earth were produced by the stars; but, having by long observation found what weather most commonly happened at the seasons of the year distinguished by the rising and setting of such and such stars, they foretold what weather was like to be in future years, at the rising and setting of the same stars.

There is one of these Calendars, under the name of Ptolemy, published by Petavius; which, if it were not the work of the author whose name it bears, seems to have been made in Egypt, by the beginning of the year being in September; the following specimen will give the reader some idea of the nature of it.

" Month, thoth, or SEPTEMBER.
"1. Hour 14, the star in the tail of the Lion appears: according to Hipparchus, the etesian winds cease; according to Eudoxus, rain and thunder.
"2. Hour 14, the Lion's tail and Spica Virginis are hid : according to Hipparchus, it prognosticates.*
"3. Hour 13, the Lion's tail appears; Capella rises in the evening; according to the Egyptians, the etesian winds cease; according to Eudoxus, wind, rain, thunder; according to Hipparchus, the east wind blows.
"4. Hour 15, the last star in Eridanus sets in the morning; according to Callippus, it prognosticates, and the etesian winds cease.
"5. Hour 13, Spica is hid: Hour 15, the bright star in Lyra, sets in the morning : according to Metrodorus, stormy ; according to Conon, the etesian winds cease, &c "

It appears by this specimen, that the astronomers mentioned in it, published Calendars; they lived in different places, and, as each of them made his calendar for the place in which he lived, they gave different times for the rising and setting of the same stars; for example—Lion's heart would not rise or set on the same day and hour at Alexandria, in Egypt, as at Athens, or Rhodes; by reason of the difference in the horizons of those places. The accounts of different authors, of the rising and setting of the same stars in the same place, would also disagree, if those authors lived in different ages; thus Spica Virginis rose, in the time of Eudoxus, on a different day and hour from its rising 1500 years after, and that because of the precession of the equinox, a thing not known till it was discovered by Hipparchus.

The Romans copied after the Greeks. and indeed made use of their Calendars, even after they were known to want correction, as appears by the confession of one of their writers of agriculture.I who says, that in settling the equinoxes and solstices, he followed Eudoxus and Meton, because the country people had been long accustomed to their accounts, though he knew of the correction of them, made by Hipparchus.

How the ancient Greeks came to put prognosticks of the weather into their Calendars, has been partly shewn from one of their best astronomical writers; that from long observation of past years, they conjectured what kind of weather would happen at such and such times of the years to come. The observations on which these prognosticks were founded, must have been of a number of years; I think it very probable that they took the number contained in the Metonick period of 19 years ; for, as within that time. the moon returns to the same aspects with the sun, and that planet was thought to have great influence upon the weather; they might imagine that an Almanack of 19 years, would be a perpetual one; and they, like some of our ignoramusses, might think that such an one would not only mark the days of the month, and of their sacrifices, and other solemnities. but would serve also to foretell the weather.

That the ancients thought the several aspects of the moon had an influence upon the weather, may be seen in Aratus;§ where we have rules for judging what weather is like to happen, from the color of the moon, the shape and situation of her horns, and other circumstances of that lesser light.

The Egyptians and Chaldeans, from whom the Greeks had their astronomy, pretended to tell, or foretell, the weather, and indeed many other events also, from the aspects and configurations of the planets; some of which they looked upon to be hot and dry; others cold and moist; some benevolent and fortunate, in certain situations; others malevolent and unfortunate.

The stars, especially those of the brightest appearance, were thought to be of the same nature with those planets, to which they had the nearest resemblance in color. We cannot wonder at such absurd fancies prevailing among the ignorant heathen, who held the sun and moon to be their great Gods, and the planets, and some of the stars, to be Deities of an inferior order, or, at least, to be places of their residence; and therefore paid them divine honors: but that christians, who,besides having the light of the Scriptures, live in an age in which such improvements in natural philosophy have been made, should pay any regard to the groundless pretences of astrologers, would be incredible, if we had not examples of it; it is a mortifying speculation to find that no opinion can be broached so absurd, and contrary to reason, but that some partisans will be found ready to stand up in its vindication.

It is admitted by all persons of experience and understanding, that the moon indeed is near enough to the earth. to be the cause of considerable effects upon our globe, and all bodies thereon; she raises the tides in the ocean, and, doubtless, causes changes in the air, and in the animal and vegetable kingdom; but there are some, whose constitutions are not injured by study and reflection, who say that the planets, even the nearest of them, are at so great a distance from us, that there is no good reason, to imagine they have any influence upon our earth or atmosphere; and if they had, how, say they, could men ever come to the knowledge of it? How could they discover, that in some configurations they shed a benign influence, in other situations had quite contrary effects? As for the fixed stars, say they, their distance from us is so immensely great, that it is utterly incredible they should, in different positions, have different effects upon sublunary things. Sound philosophy, say they, teaches us that the stars are corporeal, and that bodies at a distance from other bodies, can no otherwise act upon them, than by impulse, or gravitation. I would just ask these learned, anti-astrologers, what effect the moon herself has on our earth, excepting this impulse or gravitation?

They say, the force of the impulse of the stars, we can estimate only by the light they send us: and how small this force is, say they, we may judge from this, that the light sent by all the stars, in the brightest night, is less than what the moon alone often gives; as for their attraction or gravitation, that, we know, say they, is reciprocally as the squares of the distances of the attracting body; how small then, say they, must the attracting power be, of the nearest star, the distance of which is so immeasurably great : indeed, says one, if the attraction of the stars were more considerable than it is, they are in so great a number scattered every way round us, that they would balance each other, so that no particular effect could follow from any small collection of them. I shall not, at this time, enter into a further discussion of the credibility of astrological and meteorological predictions of the weather; I should not have said so much of it at present, if speaking of the ancient Calendars did not put me in mind of the conversation of a learned, conceited, and pedantic ignoramus, who says, What wretched stuff our Almanacks are filled with every year, not only about the weather, but about many other things, which I do not understand, and, as a matter of course, do not believe.

There are some not overburdened with learning, science, erudition, or even common sense, who, in effect say, that Almanack-makers would foretell the weather with as much certainty as they now do, if they were to put the words thunder, heat, wind, showers, &c. for the summer months; and the words, cold. frost, and snow, for the winter months, into a bag, and shake them out at random : but what. say they, is still beyond measure, ridiculous, they (the almanack-makers) have a column for the parts of the human body, head, face, neck, throat, breast, and so on down to the feet and toes, and even to the toe-nails, to shew and please you, for every day of the year, over what member or part of man's body, the moon exercises dominion: and further, say they, to illustrate this wise conceit, we have, in some of their Almanacks, the picture of a man, struck through with lines, to shew over what part the sign, or constellation of aries has dominion, what part is under taurus, gemini, &c.; by which they would insinuate, if any one would regard such whimsies, that if you wanted a cure for the head-ache, you should make use of the medicine for it at the time when the moon is in aries ; and so of the rest. Why, say they, cannot our almanack-makers copy after the French, —they give a great many useful things in their almanacks, omitting all predictions of weather, or other events; and have in some of them given this very good reason for it, that the Academy of Sciences did not think them to have any foundation in nature, Is this true, because the French say so? NO.—

Sirius is, in appearance, the largest of any of the fixed stars, and is in the mouth of the constellation of the Great Dog, and is commonly called the Dog Star: when this star rises cosmically, as it did anciently in Egypt, about the time of the sun's coming to the summer tropick, the Nile began to rise, the overflowing of which was the great cause of the fertility of that country; this induced the Egyptians to pay divine honors to the Dog Star; and to call a period at the end of which that star rose cosmically again, on the same day of their wandering year, the great year; this period contained 1465 of their common years.*

They imagined the Dog Star not only to point out the time of the Nile's beginning to rise, but to be the efficient cause of its overflowing, or of the fertility consequent upon it; from the colour of the star, at its first appearance, they formed prognosticks what kind of season they were to expect: if it were of a golden colour, they thought it presaged a fruitful year; if dim and pale, they looked upon it as a bad omen, that portended a scarcity ; it may, perhaps, be doubted whether there were any truth in these observations or not; if there were, it must be owing to this, that the different colour of the star was caused by the different constitution of the air ; and from that, possibly some conjectures might be made of the following season. They fancied also that the Dog Star rising with the Sun, and joining his influence to the fire of that luminary' was the cause of that extraordinary heat which usually falls out in that season; and accordingly they gave the name of the Dog Days to about six or eight weeks of the hottest part of summer.

The Greeks, in imitation of the Egyptians, their masters in idolatry and superstition, as well as science, held the same opinion of the
Dog Star's being the cause of that sultry heat,

so often pernicious to the health and life of

man; Homer, comparing the shining of the

armor of Achilles, whose fury was so fatal to

the Trojans, to the pernicious blaze of the

Dog Star, rising at the end of summer, calls

it an ill omen,

"Portending heat intense to wretched mortals,"

or, as the sense of the passage is well expressed by Pope*—

—"his burning breath

Taints the red air with fevers, plagues and death."

When the father of the poets had said thus

much, it is no wonder the rest of them should

talk of the rage of the Dog Star, as some of

them do also of the fury of the lion; because a star of the first magnitude, called Lion's Heart, rising in the time of Dog Days,

was also thought to contribute towards the

great heat of that season.

Hippocrates has a sentence, or aphorism,

that seems to forbid the use of purging medicines in Dog Days; we must not conclude

from this, that great physician and philosopher to have thought the influence of the

Dog Star any thing considerable; there was

another learned Greek, who was wiser than

to go into that foolish opinion of the vulgar.

and this was Petavius. It is probable Hippocrates only meant to point out the hot time of

the year, commonly marked by the rising of

the Dog Star. Our annual prognosticators,

who call themselves (and who, without any

kind of doubt, are) students in physick and

astrology, would bring us back, (if they could)

to the old Egyptian superstition, would have

us consider the situation of the stars and

planets, in taking physick and emetics, and

indeed in all our affairs, as the Mahometans

do at this time. As to the Dog Days, by some

attended to with so much superstitious regard, it is pleasant to see what variety of

opinions there are both among the ancients

and moderns, about the beginning and end of

them; this variety is, in some instances, owing to the ignorance of the writers, who did

not know the Dog Star would rise with the

sun on different days in different horizons;

so that upon this account, the dog days would

not, in the same age, begin on the same day

in Egypt, as at Athens or Rome; in other instances, it is occasioned by the precession of

the equinox not being known, or not attended

to; and by the imperfection of the Julian

year, causing the seasons to advance; by reason of which, dog star did not rise cosmically

on the same day at Rome—for example, in

the time of Pliny, as it did four or five hundred years before or after; enough may be

seen in Riccolus upon this subject, from whom

I shall take two or three examples: in the

time of Hippocrates, which he makes to be

about 400 years before the Christian Æra,

the dog star rose cosmically in the parallel of

Rhodes, where the pole was elevated 36 degrees, on the 11th of July; at the settling of

the year 100 by Julius Cæsar, it rose at

Rome on the 18th of July; in the year 1600,

it rose at Bologna on the 27th of July.

In looking over an ancient Calendar in

Bed, I find the beginning of the Dog Days

placed on the 14th of July; in one prefixed

to the common prayer, printed in the time of

Queen Elizabeth, the Dog Days are said to begin on the 6th of July, and end on the 5th of

September; and this was continued till the

Restoration; when that book was revised.

and the Dog Days omitted; from that time

to the correction of the British Calendar, our

Almanacks had the beginning of the Dog

Days on the 19th of July, the end on the 28th

of August: since the correction, the beginning has been put on the 30th of July, the

end on the 7th of September; but the beginning of the Dog Days is now put on or about

the 25th of August, and the end, on or about

the 5th of September.

I shall make a few additional remarks on the predictions of the WEATHER—and I have done.

The changes of the weather are some of

the most obvious appearances in the system

of nature. We here see snow and rain, hail

and vapor, exhibited upon the broadest scale

of grandeur and magnificence, and often listened with reverential astonishment at the flash

and sound of tumultuous elements. Sometimes the air seems lost to all motion and activity; at other times, it is roused to the fury of the whirlwind, and the rage of the tempest. Whatever temporary or personal evils

may arise from these occasional transitions, it

is certain they are subservient to the most

gracious purposes in the visible system, and

are necessary to the existence of every animal being.

Notwithstanding we cannot predict, with

absolute certainty, the future changes in the

weather—yet having a knowledge of the atmospheric gases and their action and reaction on one another, and how, and in what

manner these gases are produced in the atmosphere, we can state those circumstances

which must concur, in order to produce the

ordinary phenomena which appear in the atmosphere. It is certain, that rain, snow, winds,

thunder and lightning, tempests, hail and vapors, &c., are preceded by certain indications.

either in the heavens above, or in the earth

beneath. It generally happens, that previous to rain, a dampness is felt in the air—a

dimness is seen in the sky, and various colors

surround the sun and moon, and the planets,

and fixed stars, seem unusually magnified.

It is a well known fact, that the atmosphere is composed of oxygen and nitrogen.

In a general point of view, the atmosphere

may be said to consist of all the substances

capable of existing in an aeriform state, at

the common temperature of our globe. But,

laying aside these heterogeneous and accidental substances, which rather float in the atmosphere than form any of its component

parts, it consists of an elastic fluid, called

atmospherical air, which is composed of two

gases, known by the names of oxygen gas and

nitrogen or azotic gas. It has been thought

by some late chemists, that the union of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere is a true

chemical combination.

In support of our meteorological and astrological predictions of the weather, much

might be said; but this would lead me into

an explanation of all the various phenomena

of the atmosphere; and into all the meteorological effects, which may be attributed to

the accidental detonations of hydrogen gas

in the atmosphere: for nature abounds with

hydrogen.

To all those, who are ignorant of this subject, and who are already too wise to be

taught, this subject, however well explained,

would be totally uninteresting; while, to

those, who understand the principles on which

these predictions are founded, it would be in

a measure useless:—therefore, from the one

class we have little to hope, and from the

other nothing to fear.

B. D.

Canterbury, N. H. Oct. 30, 1823.

* Iliad, book xxii. v. 42.

† Horat. l. iii. od. 9.—"Jain procella furit et stella

versani leonis."

‡ Upon the Dog days being the cause of hot weather,

and dangerous to health.