258 Astronomy. [Lecture 17. 



in either hemisphere, by the naked eye, is not 

 above a thousand. From what we are able to 

 judge by computation and observation, it is con- 

 cluded that none of the fixed stars can be at a less 

 distance than 32,000,000,000,000 of miles from 

 us, which is further than a cannon-ball would 

 fly in 7,000,000 of years. The famous French 

 astronomer Lalande, indeed, makes the distance 

 by a late computation to be 7,086,760,000,000 

 leagues. 



Though the number of the fixed stars is less 

 than common observers might imagine, yet it 

 is still too great, from their resemblance to each 

 other, to enable us to distinguish them by giving 

 each a particular name, as has been done with 

 regard to the planets. Astronomers therefore 

 have found a commodious method of arranging 

 them under various figures, called constellations. 

 They have given to these constellations the names 

 and figures of various personages celebrated in 

 antiquity, and even of many animals or of inani- 

 mate bodies, as instruments, machines, &c. which 

 fable has feigned to have been carried from earth 

 to heaven. Ptolemy has enumerated forty-eight 

 constellations; and there are upon our globes 

 about seventy. On Senex's, Jones's, and Gary's 

 globes Bayer's letters are inserted* ; the first in 



* In the best of Jones's and Gary's globes, the double, 

 triple, quadruple, and nebulous stars are indicated by 

 appropriate characters. 



