Marriage and parentage, education, and kindred subjects / O.S. Fowler.

  • Orson S. Fowler
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Marriage and parentage, education, and kindred subjects / O.S. Fowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    113/610 page 63
    FAMILIAR LESSONS ON ASTRONOMY. CHAPTER I. DISCOVERT OF ASTRONOMY—DEFINITIONS—THE SUN. 1. My dear young friends, this is a beautiful world in which we live. Its surface is diversified by mountains, valleys, plains, rivers, and oceans. We have forests and shady groves, whose green and waving foliage apparently ascends to heaven, and the cloud-capped mountain, emitting from its summit fire and lava; we have sparkling streamlets, whose crystal waters meander through mossy meadows, fragrant with rich and velvet flowers ; we have rocks, fields, and warbling songsters ; each and all of which are but so many messengers or evidences of the goodness of the Creator. He caused each tiny floweret to put forth its tender leaves, to bud, expand, and blossom, to call forth meet incense of praise and gratitude. 2. We might spend many delightful hours in enumerating and describing the beauties of our lower sphere with profit; but it is my present purpose to direct your thoughts to the worlds and systems of worlds which stud the canopy above us. We shall then see, that as a family is but one among the numerous groups which compose society, so our earth is but a speck in the whole universe of God. 3. You have all doubtless gazed with delight at the little twinkling, twinkling stars, and often wondered what they are, what their use is, who made them, etc. They are indeed very beautiful, and the more so, because they are arranged in perfect order and system, and their motions are all regulated by fixed and certain laws. The science which treats of all these stars is called Astronomy, which means, relating to the stars. 4. As remote in the annals of history as the flood—even three hundred and fifty years before the flood, over two thousand years before the Christian era—the attention of different nations was directed to the study of Astronomy; especially the Chaldean, Egyptian, and Grecian nations. It is thought that in past ages of the world, this science was carried to a great degree of perfec- tion, and that many of the great principles then discovered and disseminated are now lost, or have been transmitted in a feeble manner. 5. Egypt, that great fountain-head of science, philosophy, literature, and « aS’ nT °Qe 0f the ear]y nations that Patronised this science. yeL before SeSeflohod!e reC°rdS °f ^ m0ti°nS °f ^ planets one hundred were found stmfmany astronomical observations 7e^TtoSt^hlCh had b6en C°mpUted llear^ tw° th0usa*d ^eai'8 phflo^L^Tn MflSeh,et.re, interested in the study of the stars. Thales, a years before Christ ’ predlC^ed aa ecbpse which occurred six hundred and ten the sforrv°heavens Philosophers an(l astronomers watched earnestly SfitoW b^0U8h th0y manifested an exceeding great interest and aesire to learn more of the worlds which floated before their vision in the
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