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An Introduction to Modern Geography, for the Use of Schools
An Introduction to Modern Geography for the Use of Schools Author:Francis Mason General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1841 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: INTRODUCTION TO GEOGRAPHY. OUTLINE OF ASTRONOMY. ASTRONOMY is a mixed mathematical science, teach, ing the knowledge of the heavenly bodies, their magnitudes, motions, distances, periods, eclipses, and order. By the aid of Astronomy man is enabled to cross the boundless ocean, and penetrate the remotest regions of the earth. The ancients conjectured various methods to account for the motions and dispositions of the heavenly bodies, which have given rise to four remarkable Systems connected with the Sun and planets, viz., the Pythagorean or Copernican, the Ptolemaic, the Tychonic, and the Newtonian. The last of these, the Newtonian System, is now generally received, and consists of the Sun with the Planets moving round it, in periods varying with their distances; and at the same time they turn round on their axes; thus creating a succession of seasons by their motion round the sun ; and a succession of day and night by their rotation on their axes : it is also called the Solar or Planetary System. It derives the former of these names from the Sun, which is made its centre; and the latter from the word Planet, by which all those bodies moving round the Sun are designated : the name Planet signifies moving star or wanderer. In the Solar System, as now understood, the eleven primary Planets are arranged according to their distances from the Sun, as follows: -- 1, Mercury; 2, Venus; 3, the Earth, with her satellite, the Moon ; 4, Mars; 5, Vesta; 6, Juno; 7, Ceres ; 8, Pallas; 9, Jupiter ; 10, fcaturu ; 11, Georgium Sidus, called also Uranus or Herschel. There are eighteen secondary Planets or Moons, r...« less