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This trifid cross represents a game played by the Hopi with reeds and is depicted on many objects of pottery. The two designs shown in plate CLI, e, f, are believed to be decorative, or, if symbolic, they have been so worn by the constant use of the vessel that it is impossible to determine their meaning by comparative methods.
The well-known ``Trifid Nebula'' is also included in the field of the photograph, which covers a truly marvelous region, so intricate in its mingling of nebulæ, star-clusters, star-swarms, star-streams, and dark vacancies that no description can do it justice.
Crossley, and by him presented to the Lick Observatory, Professor Keeler took in 1899 a series of beautiful and instructive nebula photographs; One of the Trifid may be singled out as of particular excellence. An astonishing multitude of new nebulæ were revealed by trial-exposures with this instrument. A "conservative estimate" gave 120,000 as the number coming within its scope.
The tracks have been found in more than twenty places, scattered through an extent of nearly 80 miles from north to south, and they are repeated through a succession of beds attaining at some points a thickness of more than 1000 feet. The bipedal impressions are, for the most part, trifid, and show the same number of joints as exist in the feet of living tridactylous birds.
Each branch is, however, bifid or more commonly trifid towards the extremity, with the points blunt yet distinctly hooked. A tendril bends to any side which is lightly rubbed, and subsequently becomes straight again; but a loop of thread weighing 0.25th of a grain produced no effect.
There is some evidence that changes have occurred in this nebula since its discovery in the last century. Barnard has made a beautiful photograph showing M 8 and the trifid nebula on the same plate, and he remarks that the former is a far more remarkable object than its more famous neighbor.
In Plate VI. one of these strange galactic landscapes is reproduced. It occurs in the Bow of Sagittarius, not far from the Trifid nebula, where the aggregations of the Milky Way are more than usually varied and characteristic. One of their distinctive features comes out with particular prominence.
Many others have been more or less plausibly alleged; but Professor Holden's persuasion, acquired from an exhaustive study of the records since 1758, that the various parts of the Orion nebula fluctuate continually in relative lustre, has not been ratified by photographic evidence. The case of the "trifid" nebula in Sagittarius, investigated by Holden in 1877, is less easily disposed of.
In this representation the two posterior triangular extensions of the body are modified into graceful curves, and the tail-feathers are simply parallel lines. The figure in this instance is little more than a trifid appendage to a broad band across the inner surface of the food bowl. In addition to this highly conventionalized bird figure, however, there are two crosses which represent stars.
We turn our five-inch telescope, armed with a low magnifying power, upon this subject and enjoy a rare spectacle. As we allow it to drift through the field we see a group of three comparatively brilliant stars advancing at the front of a wonderful train of mingled star clusters and nebulous clouds. A little northwest of it appears the celebrated trifid nebula, No. 4355 on the map.
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