and if the appearance of an unusual phenomenon in the sky, say, 

 of an eclipse, was associated with any particular terrestrial event, 

 for example, the death of some chief or some scourge of plague or 

 famine, the coincidence, as we would call it, would certainly im- 

 press him very greatly. Thus it came about that men of remote 

 ages observed and recorded the occurrences of comets, eclipses, 

 meteor-showers and like phenomena. Not only were these facts 

 observed, but suggestions were made to explain the facts. The 

 earth was early looked upon as a circular plane, surrounded and 

 bounded by the solid hemispherical vault of the heaven. The stars 

 seemed to be fixed in this vault, the moon and, later, the planets 

 were supposed to crawl over it. That the sun also was supported 

 in the sphere of heaven and, like moon and planets, made his way 

 across it, the ancients hesitated, for long, to say. No doubt the 

 difficulty which they felt in making this supposition was due to the 

 fact that in the day-time the stars were no longer visible. Another 

 problem, which faced them, after they had placed the sun in the 

 vault of heaven, was how to explain that the sun, having set in the 

 West, should rise again in the East. Was it the same sun or a 

 different sun? From such practical conditions, and out of such 

 perplexing difficulties as these just mentioned, the science of 

 astronomy began slowly to evolve. 



It is impossible to fix, with any certainty, the dates or the 

 names of the persons associated with that systematic observation 

 of the moon and the planets, which resulted in the discovery of 

 their regular motion among the stars. The grouping of the stars 

 into constellations, and the prediction of solar and lunar eclipses 

 were evidently accomplished at a later date in the history of the 

 science, but, notwithstanding, long years before history, properly 

 speaking, begins. As Professor Forbes, in his excellent little work, 

 "History of Astronomy", has surmised, it is, no doubt, quite pro- 

 bable that the discoveries mentioned above were made independent- 

 ly by Chinese, Indian, Persian, Tartar, Egyptian, Babylonian, 

 Assyrian, Phoenician and Greek astronomers. The science of 

 astronomy can certainly trace its origins to a remote antiquity. 

 For this reason, and also because of the questionable trustworthi- 

 ness of some of the traditionary records, which have come down to 

 historians, it becomes a difficult task to assign to particular nations 



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