VENUS BRIGHTER THAN THE MOON IF FULLY LIGHTED. SIX THOUSAND MILLION MILLION TONS OF EARTH.

MARS-HIS BABIES.

THE MOON, AND HER DAY OF TWO WEEKS.

THE ASTEROIDS, AND BODE'S LAW.

JUPITER, AND HIS 9,000 ECLIPSES. SATURN'S GIDDY DISPLAY OF ORNAMENT.

URANUS, AND HIS DAY OF FORTY-TWO YEARS - THE HUNT FOR NEPTUNE. THE SUN'S STARRY STAMPING-GROUND, CALLED THE ZODIAC.

TWENTY MILLIONS OF STARS IN SIGHT – NO BOTTOM.

MEASURING.

DISTANCES TOO GREAT TO TALK ABOUT.

THE BIG DIPPER – PRECESSION OF THE EQUINOXES, WITHOUT BIG WORDS. NUTATION, THE TREMOR OF A WORLD.

HISTORY OF THE HEAVENLY SCIENCE – CHALDÆA, MEROE, ALEXANDRIA.
BEN GEBER, ULUGH BEGH, COPERNICUS, TYCHO BRAHE.
THE HISTORY OF GALILEO.

THE PERTINACITY OF KEPLER.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

SOME FAINT IDEA OF CALCULUS IN COMMON SPEECH

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BIG FIGURERS. ASTRONOMERS NOW PLENTY AS LEAVES IN JUNE.

WORLDS WITHOUT END.

There are few persons who are not susceptible to the fascinations presented by the wonders of Astronomy.

If an inhabitant of this little World of ours look upward on any highly-starlit night, he is confronted by a portion of the grand Universe,-a Universe so gigantic as to far surpass the utmost conceptions of his imagination. Stars of varying degrees of brilliancy bespangle the whole concave of heaven, but across the central portion of the expanse stretches a misty zone or band, the cause of which is the marvelous multiplicity of light-giving Worlds in that zone. This Milky Way is found, upon circumnavigating our World, to entirely surround us, leading the Astronomer thus to determine that the outside Universe is shapen like a cheese or grind-stone, and that our position in that cheese, or grind-stone, is nearly central, Looking toward the Milky Way, we are looking from the centre of the cheese to the rim, and of course looking the longest way out of the cheese and encountering the maximum number of Stars; again, looking the nearest way out of the cheese, we behold the Stars vastly less frequent.

Thus centrally, in this Titanic cheese made up of Stars each one of which is incalculably distant from its nearest neighbor, is placed our Sun,-a Star undoubtedly of the average size, but certainly not one of the largest. The enormous prominence of this fiery orb in our eyes is entirely due to the comparatively close view which it is our fortunate lot to have of him. Around our Sun swing a large number of smaller and wholly-dependent bodies. Many of them are Comets, and a large group (called Asteroids) are apparently fragments of a once great Planet, for they travel around the Sun in close company with each other, and present very irregular forms.