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There are only two noteworthy doubles in that part of Ophiuchus with which we are at present concerned: 36, whose magnitudes are five and seven, distance 4.3", p. 195°, colors yellow and red; and 39, magnitudes six and seven and a half, distance 12", p. 356°, colors yellow or orange and blue. The first named is a binary whose period has not been definitely ascertained.
Now the astronomers who separated from each other, and in so doing spoiled the old constellation-figures, seem to have despaired of freeing Ophiuchus from his entanglements. The Serpent is twined around his body, the Scorpion is clawing at one leg. The constellation makers have per fas et nefas separated Scorpio from the Serpent Holder, spoiling both figures.
And here, again, some imagine that a sculptured representation of these imagined figures in the heavens may have been interpreted and expanded into the narrative of a contest between the man and the old serpent the dragon, Ophiuchus the serpent-bearer being supposed to typify the eventual defeat of the dragon.
When, like the one described by Milton, they 'fire the length of Ophiuchus huge, they show that there will be much mortality caused by poisoning. The comet of 1680, which led Bayle to write the treatise to which reference has just been made, was one well calculated to inspire terror.
At the bottom of the scales are stars like the sun, of which the lustre is tried by our instrumental means sensibly steady. At the other extreme are ranged the astounding apparitions of "new," or "temporary" stars. But of the "new star" in Ophiuchus found by Mr. Hind on that night, little more could be learnt than of the brilliant objects of the same kind observed by Tycho and Kepler.
Thus, a nude man with a raised club was described, not as Hercules but as Cain. Another, plunged up to his middle in earth and stretching out despairing arms, was Chore, not Ophiuchus, and a third, hung by his hair to a snaky tree, was Absolon. The scheme of the whole, indeed, seemed to be an assemblage of the patriarchs of evil, perhaps not uninfluenced by a study of Dante.
We now pass northward to the region covered by map No. 14, including the remainder of Ophiuchus and Serpens. Beginning with the head of Serpens, in the upper right-hand corner of the map, we find that beta, of magnitude three and a half, has a ninth-magnitude companion, distance 30", p. 265°. The larger star is light blue and the smaller one yellowish.
Its place was near the heel of the right foot of 'Ophiuchus huge. Kepler tells us that it had no hair or tail, and was certainly not a comet. Moreover, like the other fixed stars, it kept its place unchanged, showing unmistakably that it belonged to the star-depths, not to nearer regions.
But the Serpent has been too much for them, insomuch that they have been reduced to the abject necessity of leaving one part of the Serpent on one side of the region they allow to Ophiuchus, and the other part of the Serpent to the other. A group of constellations whose origin and meaning are little understood remains to be mentioned.
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