A SHORT HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY. 



CHAPTER I. 



PRIMITIVE ASTRONOMY. 



"The never-wearied Sun, the Moon exactly round, 

 And all those Stars with which the brows of ample heaven are 



crowned, 



Orion, all the Pleiades, and those seven Atlas got, 

 The close beamed Hyades, the Bear, surnam'd the Chariot, 

 That turns about heaven's axle tree, holds ope a constant eye 

 Upon Orion, and of all the cressets in the sky 

 His golden forehead never bows to th' Ocean empery." 



The Iliad (Chapman's translation). 



i. ASTRONOMY is the science which treats of the sun, the 

 moon, the stars, and other objects such as comets which are 

 seen in the sky. It deals to some extent also with the earth, 

 but only in so far as it has properties in common with the 

 heavenly bodies. Cjn early times astronomy was concerned 

 almost entirely with the observed motions of the heavenly 

 bodies. At a later stage astronomers were able to discover 

 the distances and sizes of many of the heavenly bodies, 

 and to weigh some of them ; and more recently they have 

 acquired a considerable amount of knowledge as to their 

 nature and the material of which they are made. 



2. We know nothing of the beginnings of astronomy, 

 and can only conjecture how certain of the simpler facts 

 of the science particularly those with a direct influence on 

 human life and comfort gradually became familiar to early 

 mankind, very much as they are familiar to modern savages. 



