, 1888-09-06
ORIGIN OF
Older Than the First Records of any Ma
tion-Interesting Data.

Older Than the First Records OF any Ma
tion-Interesting Data.
When did astronomy Fave its begin
nings on the earth2 There have been
many learned attempts 10 answer this
question. They all have led to the con-
clusion that long before the historic
period there was a large common stock
of knowledge; so large, iE fact, that one
distinguished writer finds it simplest to
ascribe the origin of astronomy to the
teaching of an extinct race: 'Ce peuple
ancien qui nous a o u appris-excepte
son nom ct son existence, +" his
tator adds.
Astronomy is older than the first re-
cords of any nation. In order that the
records might exist, it was first necessary
to divide the years and times by astro-
nomical observations. On the other
hand, l believe the travellers of today
have found no tribe SO degraded as to be
without some knowledge of the sort.
1t is extremely doubtful if animals no.
tice special celestial bodies. Birds seem
to be inspired by the approach of day and
not by the actual presence of the sun. 1t
is a question whether dogs ebay the
moon" or only the moons light. A
friend maintains that her King Charles
spaniel watched the progress of an &C.
cultatlon of Venus by the crescent moon
with the most vivid interest. This is the
only case which 1 have been able to col
lect IN which the attention of animals
has been even supposed to have been held
by a celestial phenomenon. The actions
of the most ignorant savages during a to-
tai solar eclipse, compared with those of
animals, throw much light IN the ques-
ton of whereabouts in the scale of intel
ligence the attention begins to be directed
to extra terrestrial occurrences. The saw
ages are appalled, by the disappearance
of the sun itself, while animals seem to
be concerned with the advent of dark
ness simply.
l am told that the Eskimos of Smiths
sound have names for a score or more of
stars, and that their long sledge Jour-
neys are safely made by the guidance of
these stars alone. l have myself seen a
Polynesian islander embark on a canoe,
without compass or chart, bound for an
island three days sail distant. His
course would need to be SO accurately
laid that at the end of his three days he
should find himself within four or five
miles of his haven; if he passed the low
coral island at a greater distance, it could
not be seen from his frail craft. There
can be little doubt but that he used the
sun by day and the stars by night to
hold his course direct.
There must nave been centuries during
which such knowledge was passed from
man to man by word of mouth, woven
into tales and learned as a part of the
lore of the sailor, the hunter or the tiller
of the soil. No one can say how early
this knowledge of the sky was put into
the formal shape of maps, globes or cata-
logues. Eudoxus is said to have con-
structed a celestial globe B. C. 366.
Globes would naturally precede mapg,
and maps mere lists or catalogues.
The prototype of all sidereal catalogues
is the Almagest of Ptolemy "a. D. 800,
which includes not only the observations
of Ptolemy, but those of the great Hip
parchus (B. G. 1870. 1t contains the
description of 1,022 stars, their positions,
and their brightness. Here we meet for
the first time the name magnitude of a
star. Ptolemy divides all the stars into
magnitudes-degrees of brightness.
Sirius, Capella, are of the first magni-
tude; the faintest stars visible to the eye
are of the sixth. But Ptolemy has gone
further, and divides each magnitude into
three parts. The moderns divide each
class into ten parts, that is, decimally.-
Edward S. Holden in The Century.