PREFACE. 



I HAVE tried to give in this book an outline of the history 

 of astronomy from the earliest historical times to the present 

 day, and to present it in a form which shall be intelligible 

 to a reader who has no special knowledge of either astronomy 

 or mathematics, and has only an ordinary educated person's 

 power of following scientific reasoning. 



In order to accomplish my object within the limits of 

 one small volume it has been necessary to pay the strictest 

 attention to compression ; this has been effected to some 

 extent by the omission of all but the scantiest treatment 

 of several branches of the subject which would figure 

 prominently in a book written on a different plan or on 

 a different scale. I have deliberately abstained from giving 

 any connected account of the astronomy of the Egyptians, 

 Chaldaeans, Chinese, and others to whom the early develop- 

 ment of astronomy is usually attributed. On the one 

 hand, it does not appear to me possible to form an in- 

 dependent opinion on the subject without a first-hand 

 knowledge of the documents and inscriptions from which 

 our information is derived ; and on the other, the various 

 Oriental scholars who have this knowledge still differ so 

 widely from one another in the interpretations that they 

 give that it appears premature to embody their results in 



