A SHORT HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY.
CHAPTER I.
PRIMITIVE ASTRONOMY.
"The never-wearied Sun, the Moon exactly round,
And all those Stars with which the brows of ample heaven are
crowned,
Orion, all the Pleiades, and those seven Atlas got,
The close beamed Hyades, the Bear, surnam'd the Chariot,
That turns about heaven's axle tree, holds ope a constant eye
Upon Orion, and of all the cressets in the sky
His golden forehead never bows to th' Ocean empery."
The Iliad (Chapman's translation).
1. Astronomy is the science which treats of the sun, the moon, the stars, and other objects such as comets which are seen in the sky. It deals to some extent also with the earth, but only in so far as it has properties in common with the heavenly bodies. In early times astronomy was concerned almost entirely with the observed motions of the heavenly bodies. At a later stage astronomers were able to discover the distances and sizes of many of the heavenly bodies, and to weigh some of them; and more recently they have acquired a considerable amount of knowledge as to their nature and the material of which they are made.
2. We know nothing of the beginnings of astronomy, and can only conjecture how certain of the simpler facts of the science—particularly those with a direct influence on human life and comfort—gradually became familiar to early mankind, very much as they are familiar to modern savages.
