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Some sciences are of yesterday; others stretch far back into the youth of time. Among these there is one of the beginnings of which we have lost all trace, so coeval was it with the commencement of man’s history; and that science is the one of which we have to trace the instrumental developments.

Although our chief task is to enlarge upon the modern, it will not be well, indeed it is impossible, to neglect the old, because, if for no other reason, the welding of old and new has been so perfect, the conquest of the unknown so gradual.

The best course therefore will be to distribute the different fields of thought and work into something like marked divisions, and to commence by dividing the whole time during which man has been observing the heavens into two periods, which we will call the Pre-telescopic and the Telescopic Ages. The work of the Pre-telescopic age of course includes all the early observations made by the unaided eye, while that of the Telescopic age includes those of vastly different kinds, which that instrument had rendered possible; so that it divides itself naturally into some three or four sub-ages of extreme importance.

It is unnecessary to say one word here on the importance of the invention of the telescope; it is well for the present purpose, however, to emphasize the further distinctions we obtain when we consider the various additions made from time to time to the telescope.

The Telescope, in fact, was comparatively little used until astronomy annexed that important branch of physics to its aid which gave us a Clock—a means of dividing time in the most accurate manner.

In quite recent times the addition of the Camera to the Telescope marks an important advance; indeed the importance of photography is not yet recognised in the way it should be.

Then, again, there is the addition of the Spectroscope, which, though it is only now beginning to yield us rich fruit, really dates from the beginning of the present century. This is an ally to the telescope of such power that he would be a bold man who would venture to set bounds to the conquests their combined forces will make.

Now not only is it essential for the proper understanding of the instruments used nowadays in every observatory, by every stargazer, to go back to the origin of the science of observation, but in no other way can one fully see in what way the new instrumental methods have added themselves to the old ones.

Further, it is of importance to go back to the actual old field of work in which the geometric conceptions which grew up in the minds of the men of ancient time—conceptions which we are now utilizing and extending—were gradually elaborated. To do this, there is no better way than to dwell very briefly on the work actually done by the old astronomers.

This programme, then, being agreed to, the first point is to trace the progress of astronomical instruments down to the time of Copernicus and Galileo. During all this period the most generally received doctrine was, that the earth was the centre of the visible heavens; and although there were many variations of this, still the arrangement of Ptolemy, Fig. 1, is a good type of the ideas of the ancients.

Fig. 1.—The Heavens according to Ptolemy.

We begin with man’s first feeble efforts, the work which man was enabled to do by his unaided eye; and we end with the tremendous addition which he got to his observing powers by the invention of the telescope.

The first instrument used for astronomical observations was none of man’s making. In the old time the only instrument was the horizon; and, truth to tell, in a land of extended plains and isolated hills, it was not a bad one. Hence it was, doubtless, that observations in the first instance were limited to certain occurrences such as the risings and settings of the stars and the relative apparent distances of the heavenly bodies from each other.

So far as we are able to learn from ancient authors, the observations next added were those of the conjunctions of the planets and of eclipses. The Egyptians are stated to have recorded 373 solar, and 832 lunar eclipses; and this statement is probably correct, as the proportions are exact, and there should be the above number of each in from 1,200 to 1,300 years.

The Chinese also record an observation, made between the years 2514 and 2436 B.C., of five planets being in conjunction.

The Chaldeans appear to have observed the motions of the moon, and an observation in 2227 B.C. is recorded; but these old dates are probably fictitious.

It is impossible to regard without surprise the general attention given to astronomical investigation in those early days compared with what we find now. Yet if we attempt to build up for ourselves any idea as to the problems of which the ancients attempted the solution, it is difficult if not impossible to do it; we cannot realize the blank which the heavens presented to them, so many great men have lived between their time and our own, by whose labours we, even if unconsciously, have profited. The first idea seems to have been to observe which stars were rising or setting at seed or harvest time, to divide the heavens into Moon Stations, and then to mark astronomically their monthly and yearly festivals.

If one looks into the old records we find that all the labours of man which had to be performed in the country or elsewhere were determined, by the rising or setting of the stars. All the exertions of the navigator and the agriculturist were thus regulated. Of the planets in those early times we hear little, except from the Chinese annals which record conjunctions.

This was before man began to use the sun as a standpoint, and hence it is that there are so many references in the ancient writers to the rising and setting of the most striking star cluster—the Pleiades, and the most striking constellation—Orion. It is known that the year, in later times at all events, began in Egypt when the brightest star in the heavens, Sirius, the dog-star, rose with the sun, this day being called the 1st of the month Thoth,^[1] which was the commencement of the Sothiac period of 1461 years.

It would appear that observations of culminations, that is, of the highest points reached by the stars, were not made till long after horizon observations were in full vigour; and here it is a question whether pyramids and the like were not the first astronomical instruments constructed by man, because for great nicety in such observations—a nicety, let us say, sufficient to determine astronomically by means of culminations the time for holding a festival—a fixed instrument of some kind was essential. The rich mine recently opened up by Mr. Haliburton and Mr. Ernest de Bunsen concerning the survival in all nations—in our own one takes the name the Feast of All Souls’—of ancient festivals governed by the midnight culmination of the Pleiades will doubtless ere long call general attention to this earliest form of accurate astronomical observation, and the determination by Professor Piazzi Smyth of the fact that in 2170 B.C., when the Pleiades culminated at midnight at the vernal equinox, the passages in the north and south faces of the pyramid of Gizeh were directed, the southern one to this culmination, and the northern one to the then pole star, α Draconis, at its transit, about 4° from the pole.

Hence one may regard the pyramid as the next astronomical instrument to the horizon. While then it is possible that such culmination observations soon replaced in some measure that class of observations which heretofore had been made on the horizon, another teaching of horizon observations became apparent. By and by travellers observed that as they travelled northwards the stars that were just visible on the southern horizon, when culminating, gradually disappeared below it. These observations were at once seized on, and Anaximander accounted for them by supposing that the earth was a cylinder.^[2] The idea of a sphere did not come till later; when it did come then came the circle as an astronomical instrument. For let us consider that a person on the earth stands, say, at the equator; then he will just be able to see along his north and south horizon the stars pointed to by the axis of the globe: if now he is transported northwards, his horizon will change with him; he will no longer be able to see the southern stars, but the northern ones will gradually rise above his horizon till he gets to the north pole, when the north pole star, instead of being on his horizon, as was the case when he was at the equator, will be over his head. So by moving from the equator to the pole (or a quarter of the distance round the earth) the stars have moved from the horizon to the point overhead, or the zenith, that is also a quarter of a circle. So it appears that if an observer moves to such a distance that the stars appear to move over a certain division of a circle with reference to the horizon, he must have moved over an equal division on the earth’s surface. Then, as now, the circle in the Western world was divided into 360°, so that the observer in moving 1° by the stars would have moved over 1 360 of the distance round the earth, on the assumption that the earth is a globe; and if the distance over which the observer has moved be multiplied by 360, the result will be the distance round the earth.

Fig. 2.—The Zodiac of Denderah.

Now let us see how Posidonius a long time afterwards (he was born about 135 years B.C.) applied this conception. He observed that at Rhodes the star Canopus grazed the horizon at culmination, while at Alexandria it rose above it 7½°. Now 7½° is 1 48 of the whole circle; so he found that from the latitude of Rhodes to that of Alexandria was 1 48 of the circumference of the earth. He then estimated the distance, getting 5,000 stadia as the result; and this multiplied by 48 gave him 240,000 stadia, his measure of the circumference of the earth.

When the sun’s yearly course in the heavens had been determined, it was found that it was restricted to that band of stars called the Zodiac, Fig. 2; the sun’s position in the zodiac at any one time of the year being found by the midnight culmination of the stars opposite the sun; this and the apparent and heliacal risings and settings were alone the subjects of observation.

It is obvious, then, that when observations of this nature had gone on for some time, men would be anxious to map the stars, to make a chart of the field of heaven; and such a work was produced by Autolycus three and a half centuries before Christ. We also owe to Autolycus and Euclid, who flourished about the same time (300 B.C.), the first geometrical conceptions connected with the apparent motions of the stars.

In the theorems of Autolycus there is a particular reference to the twelve parts of the zodiac, as denoted by constellations. The following are the most important propositions which he lays down:—

1. “The zodiacal sign occupied by the sun neither rises nor sets, but is either concealed by the earth or lost in the sun’s rays. The opposite sign neither rises nor sets, i.e., visibly, i.e., after sundown, but it is visible during the whole night.

2. “Of the twelve signs of the zodiac, that which precedes the sign occupied by the sun rises visibly in the morning; that which succeeds the same sign sets visibly in the evening.

3. “Eleven signs of the zodiac are seen every night. Six signs are visible, and the five others, not occupied by the sun, afterwards rise.

4. “Every star has an interval of five months between its morning and its evening rising, during which time it is visible. It has an interval of at least thirty days—between its evening setting, and its morning rising—during which time it is invisible.” (That is, the space passed over by the sun in its annual path is such that a star which you see on one side of the sun, when the sun rises at one time, would be seen a month afterwards on the other side of the sun.)

Autolycus makes no mention of the planets. Their irregular movements rendered them unsuited to the practical object which he had in view. He is, however, stated by Simplicius, as quoted by Sir G. C. Lewis to have proposed some hypothesis for explaining their anomalous motions, and to have failed in his attempt.

Euclid carries the results arrived at in this early pre-telescopic age much further; in a little-known treatise, the Phenomena,^[3] he thus sums up the knowledge then acquired:—

“The fixed stars rise at the same point, and set at the same point; the same stars always rise together, and set together, and in their course from the east to the west they always preserve the same distance from one another. Now, as these appearances are only consistent with a circular movement, when the eye of the observer is equally distant from the circumference of the circle in every direction (as has been demonstrated in the treatise on Optics), it follows that the stars move in a circle and are attached to a single body, and that the vision is equally distant from the circumference.

Fig. 3.—Illustration of Euclid’s statements. P the star between the Bears. D D´ the region of the always visible. C B A the regions of the stars which rise and set.

“A star is visible between the Bears, not changing its place, but always revolving upon itself. Since this star appears to be equally distant from every part of the circumference of each circle described by the other stars, it must be assumed that all the circles are parallel, so that all the fixed stars move along parallel circles, having this star as their common pole.

“Some of these neither rise nor set, on account of their moving in elevated circles, which are called the ‘always visible.’ They are the stars which extend from the visible pole to the Arctic circle. Those which are nearest the pole describe the smallest circle, and those upon the Arctic circle the largest. The latter appears to graze the horizon.

“The stars to the south of this circle all rise and set, on account of their circles being partly above and partly below the earth. The segments above the earth are large and the segments below the earth are small in proportion as they approach the Arctic circle, because the motion of the stars nearest the circle above the earth is made in the longest time, and of those below the earth in the shortest. In proportion as the stars recede from this circle, their motion above the earth is made in less time, and that below the earth in greater. Those that are nearest the south are the least time above the earth, and the longest below it. The stars which are upon the middle circle make their times above and below the earth equal; whence this circle is called the Equinoctial. Those which are upon circles equally distant from the equinoctial make the alternate segments in equal times. For example, those above the earth to the north correspond with those below the earth to the south; and those above the earth to the south correspond with those below the earth to the north. The joint times of all the circles above and below the earth are equal. The circle of the milky way and the zodiacal circle being oblique to the parallel circles, and cutting each other, always have a semicircle above the earth.

“Hence it follows that the heaven is spherical. For if it were cylindrical or conical, the stars upon the oblique circles, which cut the equator, would not in the revolution of the heaven always appear to be divided into semicircles; but the visible segment would sometimes be greater and sometimes less than a semicircle. For if a cone or a cylinder were cut by a plane not parallel to the base, the section is that of an acute-angled cone, which resembles a shield (an ellipse). It is, therefore, evident that if a figure of this description is cut in the middle both in length and breath, its segments will be unequal. But the appearances of the heaven agree with none of these results. Therefore the heaven must be supposed to be spherical, and to revolve equally round an axis of which one pole above the earth is visible and the other below the earth is invisible.

“The Horizon is the plane reaching from our station to the heaven, and bounding the hemisphere visible above the earth. It is a circle; for if a sphere be cut by a plane the section is a circle.

“The Meridian is a circle passing through the poles of the sphere, and at right angles to the horizon.

“The Tropics are circles which touch the zodiacal circle, and have the same poles as the sphere. The zodiacal and the equinoctial are both great circles, for they bisect one another. For the beginning of Aries and the beginning of the Claws (or Scorpio) are upon the same diameter; and when they are both upon the equinoctial, they rise and set in conjunction, having between their beginnings six of the twelve signs and two semicircles of the equinoctial; inasmuch as each beginning, being upon the equinoctial, performs its movement above and below the earth in equal times. If a sphere revolves equally round its axis, all the points on its surface pass through similar axes of the parallel circles in equal times. Therefore these signs pass through equal axes of the equinoctial, one above and the other below the earth; consequently the axes are equal, and each is a semicircle; for the circuit from east to east and from west to west is an entire circle. Consequently the zodiacal and equinoctial circles bisect one another; each will be a great circle. Therefore the zodiacal and equinoctial are great circles. The horizon is likewise a great circle; for it bisects the zodiacal and equinoctial, both great circles. For it always has six of the twelve signs above the earth, as well as a semicircle of the equator. The stars above the horizon which rise and set together reappear in equal times, some moving from east to west, and some from west to east.”

We have given this long extract in justice to the men of old, containing as it does many of those geometrical principles which all our modern instruments must and actually do fulfil.

It is true that the present idea of the earth’s place in the system is different. Euclid imagined the earth to be at the centre of the universe. It is now known that the earth is one of various planets which revolve round the sun, and further, that the journey of the earth round the sun is so even and beautifully regulated that its motion is confined to a single plane. Year after year the earth goes on revolving round the sun, never departing, except to a very small extent, from this plane, which is one of the fundamental planes of the astronomer and called the Plane of the Ecliptic.

Fig. 4.—The Plane of the Ecliptic.

Suppose this plane to be a tangible thing, like the surface of an infinite ocean, the sun will occupy a certain position in this infinite ocean, and the earth will travel round it every year.

If the axis of the earth were upright, one would represent the position of things by holding a globe with its axis upright, so that the equator of the earth is in every part of its revolution on a level with this ecliptic sea. But it is known that the earth, instead of floating, as it were, upright, as in Fig. 4, has its axis inclined to the plane of the ecliptic, as in Fig. 5.

It is also known that by turning a globe round, distant objects would appear to move round an observer on the globe in an opposite direction to his own motion, and these distant objects would describe circles round a line joining the places pointed to by the poles of the earth, i.e., round the earth’s axis.

Fig. 5.—The Plane of the Ecliptic, showing the Inclination of the Earth’s Axis.

It is now easy to explain the observations referred to by Euclid by supposing the surface of the water in the tub to represent the plane of the ecliptic, that is, the plane of the path which the sun apparently takes in going round the earth; and examining the relative positions of the sun and earth represented by two floating balls, the latter having a wire through it inclined to the upright position; it will be seen at once by turning the ball on the wire as an axis to represent the diurnal motion of our earth, how Euclid finds the Bear which never sets, being the place in the heavens pointed to by the earth’s pole; and how all the stars in different portions of the heavens appear to move in complete circles round the pole-star when they do not set, and in parts of circles when they pass below the horizon. By moving the ball representing the earth round the sun and so examining their relative positions, during the course of a year it will be seen how the sun appears to travel through all the signs of the zodiac in succession in his yearly course, remaining a longer or shorter time above the horizon at different times of the year.

For it will be seen that if the spectator on the globe, when in the position that its inclined axis, as shown in Fig. 5, points towards the sun, were looking at the sun from a place where one can imagine England to be at midday, the sun would appear to be very high up above the horizon; and if he looked at it from the earth in the opposite part of its orbit it would be very low and near the horizon. When the earth, therefore, occupied the intermediate positions, the sun would be half way between the extreme upper position and the extreme lower position as the earth moves round the sun, and in this way the solstices, equinoxes, and the seasonal changes on the surface of our planet, are easily explained.

1. Corresponding to 20th July, 139 B.C.

2. Anaximander flourished about 547 B.C.

3. Quoted by Sir G. C. Lewis in his Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 187.