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supplied by conjecture. In the following pages, however, care has been taken to suppose, in the discoverer, no previous information, except such as might be furnished by those phenomena which are manifest to an unassisted eye, and which could not have escaped an attentive observer; and it will, probably, be admitted that the notions imagined to arise on contemplating the moving bodies in the firmament are precisely those which would occur to the mind of an intelligent spectator, if placed in such circumstances.

It has been attempted, in the present Work, to connect the history with the first elements of astronomy, in order that they who seek to obtain a knowledge of the science may derive assistance at the commencement of their enquiries; when any difficulty which the student may happen to encounter is most likely to deter him from the pursuit; and when, also, to keep alive his interest in the subject, there is need of some such allurement as may be found in a relation of the steps accomplished by the celebrated men of past ages. Nor can it be doubted that the generous desire of participating in the renown acquired by the ancient masters in astronomy must, to those who have arrived at its principles by thus tracing the succession of discoveries, present an inducement, under favourable opportunities, to join their efforts for the improvement of the science to those by which it has been brought to its actual state. The obscure period during which astronomy was in its infancy, and in which the first notions must have been obtained from a mere view of the heavens, has been dwelt on at some length, and the probable nature of the earliest observations has been described. Some mention has, next, been made of the distribution of the fixed stars into clusters; of the dispositions of the principal circles imagined to be described on the surface of the celestial sphere for the purpose of marking with some precision the places of the sun, the moon and the erratic stars; and of the nature of the observations by which the periodical revolutions and, consequently, the mean motions of these may have been discovered before their places in the heavens could have been directly determined by instruments. An endeavour has, subsequently, been made to shew the nature of those assemblages of

[graphic][subsumed]

AN

HISTORICAL ACCOUNT

OF THE

ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

OF

ASTRONOMY.

WITH PLATES ILLUSTRATING, CHIEFLY, THE ANCIENT SYSTEMS.

BY JOHN NARRIEN, F.R.A.S.

"Credo Deos immortales sparsisse animos in corpora humana, ut essent, qui terras tuerentur,
quique, cœlestium ordinem contemplantes, imitarentur eum vitæ modo atque constantiâ."
CICERO, DE SENECTUTE, CAP. XXI.

LONDON:

BALDWIN AND CRADOCK, PATERNOSTER ROW.

1833.

G. WOODFALL, ANGEL COURT, SKINNER STREET, LONDON.

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