GEMINI

, a constellation of the northern hemisphere, one of the 48 old constellations, and the 3d in order of the zodiacal signs, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, &c. This constellation consists of two children, twins, called Castor and Pollux, and denoted by the mark, 11, being a rude drawing of the same.

This constellation was, more anciently, depicted by a couple of young kids, by the Egyptians and eastern nations, as denoting that part of the spring when these animals appear; but the Greeks altered them to two children, which some of them make to be Castor and Pollux, some of them again Hercules and Apollo, and others Triptolemus and Jasion; but the Arabians afterwards changed the figures into two peacocks, their religion not allowing them to paint or draw any human figure. Sir Isaac Newton thinks the figures had some reference to the Argonautic expedition.

The ancients attributed to every sign of the zodiac one of the principal deities for its tutelary power. Phœbus had the care of Gemini, and hence all the jargon of astrologers about the agreement of the sun and this constellation.

The stars in the sign Gemini are, in Ptolomy's catalogue 25, in Tycho's 25, in Hevelius's 38, and in the Britannic catalogue 85.