The young gentleman and lady's astronomy. Familiary explained in ten dialogues between Neander and Eudosia. To which is added, the description and use of the globes and armillary sphere / By James Ferguson.

  • James Ferguson
Date:
1768
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The young gentleman and lady's astronomy. Familiary explained in ten dialogues between Neander and Eudosia. To which is added, the description and use of the globes and armillary sphere / By James Ferguson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    By and by, * you fhall be fatisfjed with refpedt to your query about the fun, E. So far I underftand you very well; but Hill it feems odd to me that people fhould ftand oppofite to us on the earth, with their heads downward. N. I believe it does ; but you know, that either the fun muft go round the earth to give us days and nights, or the earth muft turn round like a globe on its axis to do fo : and will not either of thefe motions anfwer the intended purpofe ? E. Undoubtedly it will. N. Now, as I have no mind to deceive you, and (hall in due time prove every thing that I advance, even to your own fatisfadtion j I do fay, that the fun does not move round the earth every twenty-four hours, but that the earth turns round in twenty-four hours : and as the fun can only enlighten one half the earth at any given inftant of time, and the other half muft then be in the dark; this motion of the earth will caufe the different places on its furface to revolve through the light and the dark in twenty-four hours; in which time, of courfe, they muft have a day and a night: and at the inftant when it is mid-day at one place, it muft be mid-night at the oppofite.—Do you believe what I fay with refpedt to the earth’s turning round ? E. I do, becaufe I am fully fatisfied that you would not knowingly deceive me; and you have promifed to prove that it does. N. Then, be pleafed to ftand up for a minute.~It is now feven o’clock in the morning, and you think you are ftanding upright, on the uppermoft fide of the earth.-—You will think the fame if you ftand upright at feven o’clock in the evening, when the earth has turned half round, becaufe you will then perceive no difference of pofture : and yet, at that time, you will« be very nearly in the fame pofition as a perfon is juft A 3 now,
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