CAPRICORN

, the Goat, a southern constellation, and the 10th sign of the zodiac, as also one of the 48 original constellations received by the Greeks from the Egyptians. The figure of this sign is drawn as having the fore part of a goat, but the hinder part of a fish; and sometimes simply under the form of a goat. In writing, it is denoted by a character representing the crooked horns of a goat's head, thus .

As to the figure of this constellation, the Greeks pretend that Pan, to avoid the terrible giant Typhon, threw himself into the Nile, and was changed into the figure here drawn; in commemoration of which exploit, Jupiter took it up to heaven. But it is probable, as Macrobius observes, that the Egyptians marked the point of the ecliptic appropriated to this sign, where the sun begins again to ascend up towards the north, with the figure of a goat, an animal which is always climbing the sides of mountains.

The stars in this constellation, in Ptolomy's and Tycho's catalogue, are 28; in that of Hevelius 29; though it is to be remarked that one of those in the tail, of the 6th magnitude, marked the 27th in Tycho's book, was lost in Hevelius's time. Flamsteed gives 51 stars to this sign.

Tropic of Capricorn, a little circle of the sphere, parallel to the equator, passing through the beginning of Capricorn, or the winter solstice, or the point of the sun's greatest south declination.