A2 THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 
‘fixed stars’’ moved in circles, or seemed so to do, for as 
yet distinction had not been made between apparent and real 
motion. While they looked intently, however, at the northern 
constellations they were at length surprised to find one which 
absolutely did not move. Here was a great discovery. What 
joy it must have afforded the astronomor of those earlier days 
to tell his countrymen that here was a star which would be of 
immense service to them in their wandering over lands and 
seas. 
The discovery of the North Polar Star was the first val- 
uable gift of astronomical science to mankind. Long was the 
battle and fierce as long, before men came to know that much 
of the motion appearing above our heads and around us is not 
real. The motion that affects us most of all and is most real, 
we can neither hear nor feel nor see, as if our Maker intended 
that we should some day learn that there are realms of truth 
which lie beyond the ken of ordinary powers of sense appealing 
in vain to all except our common sense. 
One of the greatest of our more modern astronomers was 
despised, opposed, hated, persecuted, imprisoned, before the 
learned, even the religious world would consent that such a 
thing could be. That it was our world that moved, and that 
for the greater part the circles which men thought they saw 
in the heavens were only imagination, and not real, being 
caused by their own motion about the axis and through the 
orbit of the earth, was one of the very great events of astron- 
omy, bringing men much nearer to the great central orb of 
truth respecting the order and movements of the heavenly 
bodies. 
The first astronomical instrument ever invented by human 
genius was a guomon, a pole ten or twelve feet long placed 
perfectly upright in the middle of a level piece of ground. 
A shepherd reclining at noon in -the shade of a rock 
noticed that the shadow of his shelter grew longer or shorter 
according to the varying season of the year. ‘This excited his 
curiosity and like a true philosopher, he must know the reason 
why. Having prepared his ground and erected his gnomon; 
