Sheep god of fertility). Other deities occasionally shown with ram features include the goddess Ishtar, the Phoenician god Baal-Hamon, and the Babylonian god Ea-Oannes. In Madagascar, sheep were not eaten as they were believed to be incarnations of the souls of ancestors. There are many ancient Greek references to sheep: that of Chrysomallos, the golden-fleeced ram, continuing to be told through into the modern era. Astrologically, Aries, the ram, is the first sign of the classical Greek zodiac, and the sheep is the eighth of the twelve animals associated with the 12-year cycle of in the Chinese zodiac, related to the
Across the Zodiac some remote place on their planet.) The book's narrator names his spacecraft the "Astronaut". The book contains what was probably the first alien language in any work of fiction. The same title was used for a later, similar book—"Across the Zodiac: A Story of Adventure" (1896) by Edwin Pallander (1869–1952) (the pseudonym of UK biologist, botanist and author Lancelot Francis Sanderson Bayly). Pallander copied some elements of Greg's plot; in his book, gravity is negated by a gyroscope. Across the Zodiac Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record (1880) is a science fiction novel by Percy Greg, who