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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
“ The Greeks even conceived tlie Sun in tlie personified 
form of a divine cliarioteer wlio drove Ins fiery steeds over tlie 
steep heaven until he bathed them at evening in the western 
wave.” 
Nor were these observations, which at first served only to 
impart some reality to the Mythology of the Ancients, useless 
in their subsequent results. 
The question naturally arose : If the Sun emerged from the 
Eastern side of the world, and descended under the Western 
horizon, where was it during the hours of darkness ? 
Gradually the researches of one astronomer, and of one 
school of astronomers after another, led to the conclusion that it 
passed underneath the Earth, and revolved round it along with all 
the other heavenly bodies. The Earth was, therefore, constituted 
the centre of the Universe. This step in astronomical knowledge 
being accomplished, other discoveries succeeded. The rotundity 
of the Earth, the unequal motion of the Sun, the Earth’s 
motion, the central position of the Sun, and the nature of the 
planets and fixed stars, were all revealed one by one, until the 
harmonious moving Solar system assumed the place of the flat, 
immovable Earth with its crystal vault of Heaven wherein were 
set, like so many sparkling jewels, those myriads of stars to 
which “ navigators ” could not penetrate. 
Let us endeavour, in the few pages at our disposal, to trace 
the first efforts by which the human mind was emancipated 
from the thraldom of ignorance, and which subsequently led to 
the acquisition of a knowledge of the actual nature of the Solar 
system, and of so much of the universe as has been revealed by 
the telescope. 
It is hardly necessary to explain why the ancients believed 
the Earth to be a fiat plain. With the exception of its hills 
and valleys it appeared so to the naked eye, and its inhabitants 
had neither instruments wherewith to observe their receding or 
approaching barks on the ocean,* nor were their vessels of 
such a character as to admit of the complete circumnavigation 
of the globe. They consequently judged of the Earth’s form, 
for a length of time, by the evidence of their senses only, hold- 
ing* it to be a circular plain surrounded on all sides by water 
upon which it floated ; and the firmament above was regarded 
as a solid vault, various astronomers attributing* to it a different 
composition. 
Some, for example, conceived it to be a “ fiery ether;” 
* Doubtless most of our readers are well aware that one of the proofs of 
the Earth’s rotundity is found in the fact that the masts of vessels are the 
last portions which disappear below, and the first of which appear above the 
visible horizon. 
