iv CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



18. Arthur Young's account of the roads in England in 1770. 



19. Comparison between cost and speed of former and present 

 modes of transport. 20. Origin of railways in England. 

 21. Their immediate effects. 22. Progress of the construction. 

 23. Their extent in 1852. 24. Capital absorbed by them. 



25. Labour employed by them 17 



THE MOON. 



1 . Interest with which the moon is regarded, and influences with which 

 it has been invested by the popular mind. 2. Its distance. 

 3. Its orbit. 4. Its magnitude. 5. Its rotation. 6. Con- 

 junction. 7. Quadrature. 8. Opposition. 9-11. Tests of an 

 atmosphere. 12-13. None exists on the moon. 14. No liquids. 

 15. No diffusion of solar light. 16. Appearance of earth seen 

 from moon. 17. It would have belts. 18. Geographical features 

 and its rotation would be visible through the clouds. 19. Moon- 

 light neither warm nor cold. 20. Moon's physical condition. 

 21. Thickly covered with mountains. 22. Selenographical 

 discoveries of Beer and Madler. 23. Vast extent and diameter of 

 the lunar mountains. 24. Circular chains. 25. Description of 

 Tycho. 26. Heights of lunar mountains. 27. Observations of 

 Lord Rosse. 28. Moon not inhabited 33 



COMMON THINGS. THE EARTH. 



1. Difficulty of observing the earth as a whole. 2. It appears at first 

 an indefinite flat surface. 3. This disproved by travelling round 

 it. 4. Proof of the curvature of its surface by observation of dis- 

 tant objects at sea. 5. By the Earth's shadow projected on the 

 Moon. 6. Inequalities of surface, such as mountains and valleys, 

 insignificant. 7. Magnitude of Earth, how ascertained. 

 8. Length of a degree of latitude. 9-10. Illustrations of the 

 Earth's magnitude. 11. Is the Earth at rest? 12. Apparent 

 motion of the firmament. 13. Origin of the word " Universe." 

 14. This apparent motion may not be real may arise from the 

 rotation of the Earth. 15. How such a rotation would produce 

 it. 16. Poles. 17. Equator. 18. Hemispheres. 19. Meri- 

 dians. 20. Which of the two rotations is the more probable ? 

 21. Rotation of the universe impossible. 22. Simplicity of the 

 supposed rotation of the globe. 23. Direct proofs of this motion. 

 24. Foucault's experiment. 25. Its analogy to the planets. 

 26. Conclusion as to the globular form of the earth requires 

 modification. 27. All human knowledge tentative and approxi- 

 mative. 28. Rotation not compatible with the exact globular 

 form. 29. Centrifugal force of the Earth's rotation. 30. The 

 globe rotating would assume the form of an oblate spheroid. 

 31. The degree of ellipticity would vary with the velocity of 

 rotation. 32. Experimental illustration. 33. Ellipticity corre- 

 sponding to the diurnal rotation. 34. How these circumstances 

 affect the actual state of the Earth. 35. Form of a terrestrial 



