Chapter I: Introduction: By Charles Pritchard, M. A., F. R. S.,

PROFESSOR OF ASTRONOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

The pages of this volume on a great subject were submitted to my criticism while passing through the press, with a request from a friend that I would make any suggestions which might occur to me for its improvement. Naturally, such a request was entertained, in the first instance, with hesitation and misgiving. But after a rapid perusal of the first sheet, I found my interest awakened, and then gradually secured; for the book seemed to me to possess certain features of no ordinary character, and, in my judgment, held out the promise of supplying an undoubted want, thus enabling me to answer a question which I have been often asked, and which had as often puzzled me, to the effect, “Can you tell me of any book on astronomy suited to beginners?” I think just such a book is here presented to the reader; for the tale of the stellar universe is therein told with great simplicity, and perhaps with sufficient completeness, in an earnest and pleasant style, equally free, I think, from inaccuracy or unpardonable exaggeration. We have here the outlines of elementary astronomy, not merely detailed without mathematics, but to a very great extent expressed in untechnical language. Success in such an attempt I regard as a considerable feat, and one of much practical utility.

For the science of astronomy is essentially a science of great magnitude and great difficulty. From the time of Hipparchus, some century and a half before the Christian era, down to the present day, the cultivation of astronomy has severely taxed the minds of a succession of men endowed with the rarest genius. The facts and the truths of the science thus secured have been of very slow accretion; but like all other truths, when once secured and thoroughly understood, they are found to admit of very simple verbal expression, and to lie well within the general comprehension, and, I may safely add, within the sympathies of all educated men and women.

Thus the great astronomers, the original discoverers of the last twenty centuries, have labored, each in his separate field of the vast universe of nature, and other men, endowed with other gifts, have entered on their labors, and by systematizing, correlating, and simplifying the expression of their results, have brought the whole within the grasp of cultivated men engaged in other branches of the varied pursuits of our complicated life. It is in this sort of order that the amelioration and civilization of mankind have proceeded, and at the present moment are, I hope and believe, rapidly proceeding.

It was, I suspect, under this point of view, though half unconsciously so, that my attention was arrested by the book now presented to the reader; for we have here many of the chief results of the laborious researches of such men as Ptolemy, Kepler, Newton, Herschel, Fraunhofer, Janssen, Lockyer, Schiaparelli, and others--no matter where accumulated or by whom recorded--filtered through the mind of a thoughtful and cultured lady, and here presented to other minds in the very forms wherein they have been assimilated and pictured in her own. And these forms and pictures are true. It is in this way that the intellectual “protoplasm” of the human mind is fostered and practically disseminated.

And, then, there is still another point of view from which this general dissemination of great truths in a simple style assumes an aspect of practical importance. I allude to the influences of this process on the imaginative or poetic side of our complex nature.

Wordsworth, in one of his prefaces, has stated so clearly the truth on this subject that I can not do better than give his words. “If the time should ever come,” he says, “when what is now science becomes familiarized to men, then the remotest discoveries of the chemist, the botanist, the mineralogist, will be as proper objects of the poet’s art as any upon which it can be employed. He will be ready to follow the steps of the man of science; he will be at his side, carrying sensation into the midst of the objects of science itself. The poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the being thus produced as a dear and genuine inmate of the household of man.”

It is for reasons such as here stated that I heartily commend this book to the attention of those who take an interest in the advancement of the intellectual progress and culture of society. The story of the Kosmos is told by the authoress in her own language and after her own method. I believe, as I have said, the story is correct.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER. PAGE.

I. THE EARTH ONE OF A FAMILY, 13

II. THE HEAD OF OUR FAMILY, 24

III. WHAT BINDS THE FAMILY TOGETHER, 34

IV. THE LEADING MEMBERS OF OUR FAMILY.--FIRST
GROUP, 46

V. THE LEADING MEMBERS OF OUR FAMILY.--SECOND
GROUP, 55

VI. THE MOON, 62

VII. VISITORS, 73

VIII. LITTLE SERVANTS, 83

IX. NEIGHBORING FAMILIES, 95

X. OUR NEIGHBORS’ MOVEMENTS, 106

XI. MORE ABOUT THE SOLAR SYSTEM, 122

XII. MORE ABOUT THE SUN, 133

XIII. YET MORE ABOUT THE SUN, 148

XIV. MORE ABOUT THE MOON, 157

XV. YET MORE ABOUT THE MOON, 164

XVI. MERCURY, VENUS, AND MARS, 180

XVII. JUPITER, 199

XVIII. SATURN, 214

XIX. URANUS AND NEPTUNE, 225

XX. COMETS AND METEORITES, 240

XXI. MORE ABOUT COMETS AND METEORITES, 246

XXII. MANY SUNS, 267

XXIII. SOME PARTICULAR SUNS, 278

XXIV. DIFFERENT KINDS OF SUNS, 291

XXV. GROUPS AND CLUSTERS OF SUNS, 304

XXVI. THE PROBLEM OF SUN AND STAR DISTANCES, 310

XXVII. MEASUREMENT OF STAR DISTANCES, 320

XXVIII. THE MILKY WAY, 329

XXIX. A WHIRLING UNIVERSE, 337

XXX. READING THE LIGHT, 344

XXXI. STELLAR PHOTOGRAPHY, 355

XXXII. THE DAWN OF ASTRONOMY, 363

XXXIII. MODERN ASTRONOMY, 375

XXXIV. SIR ISAAC NEWTON, 382

XXXV. LATER ASTRONOMY, 393

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE.

Hipparchus in the Observatory at Alexandria _Frontispiece._

The Solar System 15

The Pleiades 19

Sun-spots 29

Phases of Mercury before Inferior Conjunction--Evening Star 50

Appearance of the Full Moon 63

One Form of Lunar Crater 69

The Earth as Seen from the Moon 71

Passage of the Earth and the Moon through the Tail of a Comet 76

Passage of the Comet of 1843 Close to the Sun 79

Meteor Emerging from Behind a Cloud 84

The Great Shower of Shooting-stars, November 27, 1872 90

Constellation of the Great Bear 108

The Great Bear 50,000 Years Ago 109

The Great Bear 50,000 Years Hence 109

Constellation of Orion as it Appears Now 110

Constellation of Orion 50,000 Years Hence 111

Position of Planets Inferior to Jupiter--Showing the Zone of the
Asteroids 123

Comparative Size of the Planetary Worlds 130

A Typical Sun-spot 135

A Solar Eruption 138

Sun-flames, May 3, 1892 143

Solar Corona and Prominence 152

Comparative Size of the Earth and Sun 155

The Moon--an Expired Planet 159

The Lunar Crater Copernicus 170

Lunar Eruption--Brisk Action 172

Lunar Eruption--Feeble Action 173

Nicolaus Copernicus 176

Phases of Venus 186

Mars and the Path of its Satellites 191

General Aspect of Jupiter--Satellite and its Shadow 200

Satellites of Jupiter Compared with the Earth and Moon 206

The System of Jupiter 208

Orbits of Nine Comets Captured by Jupiter 213

Saturn and the Earth--Comparative Size 215

Ideal View of Saturn’s Rings and Satellites from the Planet 222

Great Astronomers of Earlier Times 227

The Great Comet of 1811 247

Donati’s Comet, 1858 249

Great Comet of 1744 254

The First Comet of 1888--June 4 255

Great Comet of 1680 260

Great Comet of 1769 261

Baron Alexander Von Humboldt 264

A Telescopic Field in the Milky Way 270

Cygnus, Constellation of 279

Stars whose Distances are Best Known 281

Lyra, Constellation of 297

Constellations in the Northern Hemisphere 300

A Cluster of Stars in Centaurus 305

The Great Nebula in Andromeda, Compared with Size of the Solar
System 307

A Cluster of Stars in Perseus 332

Hercules, Constellation of 338

The Great Bear, Constellation of 341

The Prism and Spectrum 344

The Spectroscope 345

Spectra, Showing the Dark Lines 347

Great Astronomers of Later Times 377

Sir Isaac Newton 386

Eye-piece of Lick Telescope 407

Lick Observatory 409

Professor E. E. Barnard 410

THE STORY

OF THE

SUN, MOON, AND STARS.