CHAPTER IV 

 WOMEN IN ASTEONOMT 



Urania, the muse of astronomy, was a woman; and, al- 

 though most of her devotees have been men, the number of 

 the gentler sex who have achieved success in the cultivation 

 of the science of the stars has been much larger than is 

 usually supposed. 



There is reason to believe that woman's interest in as- 

 tronomy dates back to early Egyptian and Babylonian 

 times when the star-gazers in the fertile valley of the 

 Nile and on the broad plains of Chaldea were so active, and 

 when they made so many important discoveries respecting 

 the laws and movements of the heavenly bodies. According 

 to Plutarch, Aganice, the daughter of Sesostris, King of 

 Egypt, tried to predict future events by the aid of celes- 

 tial globes and by the study of the constellations. Her ob- 

 servations, however, were in the interests of astrology 

 rather than of astronomy, as we now understand the 

 science. 



The first woman whose name has come down to us, who 

 deserved to be regarded as an astronomer, was most prob- 

 ably Aglaonice, the daughter of Hegetoris of Thessaly. By 

 means of the lunar cycle known as the Saros, a period dis- 

 covered by the Chaldean astronomers and embracing a lit- 

 tle more than eighteen years, during which the eclipses of 

 the moon and sun recur in nearly the same order as dur- 

 ing the preceding period, this Greek woman was able to 

 predict eclipses. The people among whom she lived re- 

 garded her as a sorceress ; but she flouted them all, and de- 



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