The Class Book for the Use of Schools Author:John Guy General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1858 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: Soon the boy who rode the horse called out " no, no, my little man, that will not do! Give it up to Philip who understands it better," and Arthur walked away much ashamed. At another time, Philip was sifting some meal through a large sieve; Arthur thought that that was very easy to do, but on taking hold of the sieve, he held it so awkwardly, that he shook the fine flour over with the bran, and Philip said, laughing, " my little man you do not understand that either." Then Arthur began to think that Philip was not so stupid after all, for he knew how to do a great many useful things that he himself knew nothing about. From the Germaai, LESSON VI. ASTBONOMY. The term Astronomy is derived from two Greek words, Aster, a star, and Nomos, a law, therefore it may be defined as, " The science which gives us a knowledge of the heavenly bodies, namely, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the comets." Perhaps, there is no subject more interesting to the enquiring mind than this science, the motions of the heavenly bodies have attracted the attention of man, from the earliest ages of the world, and the ancient philosophers, with the view of reducing this study to a system, endeavoured to arrange the stars into clusters, or fanciful groups, resembling beasts, fishes, and other bjects. These groups they called Constellations, thus, the constellation, or sign, known as " the Lion," is a cluster or group of stars, supposed to have some resemblance to that animal. The ancients had very mistaken notions with regard to the earth, and the heavenly bodies; they believed that the former was an immense plain, lying a...« less