Constellations have always been troublesome things to
name. If you give one of them a fanciful name, it will always
refuse to live up to it; it will always persist in not resembling
the thing it has been named for. Ultimately, to satisfy
the public, the fanciful name has to be discarded for a common-sense one, a manifestly_(page_88_crop).jpg)
SOUTHERN CROSS.
descriptive one. The Great Bear remained the Great Bear—and unrecognizable as such—for thousands of years; and people complained about it all
the time, and quite properly; but as soon as it became the
property of the United States, Congress changed it to the
Big Dipper, and now everybody is satisfied, and there is no more talk about riots. I
would not change the Southern Cross to the Southern Coffin,
I would change it to the Southern Kite; for up there in the
general emptiness is the proper home of a kite, but not for
coffins and crosses and dippers. In a little while, now—I
cannot tell exactly how long it will be—the globe will belong
to the English-speaking race; and of course the skies also.
Then the constellations will be re-organized, and polished up,
and re-named—the most of them "Victoria," I reckon, but
this one will sail thereafter as the Southern Kite, or go out of
business. Several towns and things, here and there, have been
named for Her Majesty already.
In these past few days we are plowing through a mighty Milky Way of islands. They are so thick on the map that one would hardly expect to find room between them for a canoe;
