

BIRS NIMROOD, THE EARLIEST SUPPOSED ASTRONOMICAL SITE. 



HISTORY OF ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERY. 



CHAPTER I. 



ERA OF THE GREEK AND ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOLS. 



ASTRONOMY, now the most perfect of all the sciences, is also the most sublime and an- 

 cient. It separates man in thought from the spot upon which his foot is planted ; makes 

 him acquainted with forms and spaces, in comparison with which terrestrial magnitude 

 and distance shrink into insignificance ; and unfolds the constitution of the universe, as 

 a scheme involving the intimate connection of the mighty and remote masses that are 

 open to observation, their incessant activity, unfailing order, and mutual dependence. 

 The idea of extension a feature of the sublime is created by the scenes with which 

 we are in immediate contiguity, and enlarged by the knowledge we possess of the 

 superficies of the globe ; but it is wonderfully expanded by the science which deals with 

 the objects that are exterior to its surface. By measuring the distances and volume, 

 and weighing the masses, of the planets by calculating the orbits of the comets, which 

 accomplish their APHELIA in the regions of invisibility, and only discover themselves to 

 us during a scanty portion of their course by contemplating the stellar firmament, 

 which, in the case of one of its members, has required the highest modern intelli- 

 gence, aided by the finest instruments, to detect even the slightest amount of PARALLAX 

 by such investigations as these, we gather some faint conception, improving to our 

 nature, yet humbling to our faculties, of the immensity in which the Creator centres, 

 with whom the vast scheme originated, and to whom alone it is reserved to estimate 



