Mechanical Philosophy, Horology, and Astronomy

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W.S. Orr, 1848 - 575 pages
 

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Page 367 - Almost all its conclusions stand in open and striking contradiction with those of superficial and vulgar observation, and with what appears to every one, until he has understood and weighed the proofs to the contrary, the most positive evidence of his senses. Thus, the earth on which he stands, and which has served for ages as the unshaken foundation of the firmest structures, either of art or nature, is divested by the astronomer of its attribute of fixity, and conceived by him as turning swiftly...
Page 445 - Aries the Ram, Taurus the Bull, Gemini the Twins, Cancer the Crab, Leo the Lion, Virgo the Virgin, Libra the Balance, Scorpio the Scorpion, Sagittarius the Archer, Capricornus the Goat, Aquarius the Waterbearer, and Pisces the Fishes...
Page 507 - On the other hand, in the regions beneath the dark side, a solar eclipse of fifteen years in duration, under their shadow, must afford (to our ideas) an inhospitable asylum to animated beings, ill compensated by the faint light of the satellites. But we shall do wrong to judge of the fitness or unfitness of their condition from what we see around us, when, perhaps, the very combinations which convey to our minds only images of horror, may be in reality theatres of the most striking and glorious displays...
Page 368 - ... of life and light to myriads of unseen worlds : so that when, after dilating his thoughts to comprehend the grandeur of those ideas his calculations have called up, and exhausting his imagination and the powers of his language to devise similes and metaphors illustrative of the immensity of the scale on which his universe is constructed, he shrinks back to his native sphere ; he finds it, in comparison, a mere point; so lost — even in the minute system to which it belongs — as to be invisible...
Page 537 - Earth when it is Summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern : the variation of distance between January and July is somewhat more than 3 million miles.
Page 421 - ... three months, till it becomes completely invisible, in which state it remains about five months, when it again becomes visible, and continues increasing during the remaining three months of its period ; but it does not always return to the same degree of brightness, nor increase and diminish by the same gradations.
Page 477 - ... some of these apparent derangements have been going on in the same direction since the beginning of the history of the world. But the restoration is in the sequel as complete as the derangement ; and in the...
Page 431 - ... a red and a green, or a yellow and a blue one — must afford a planet circulating about either ; and what charming contrasts and " grateful vicissitudes"' — a red and a green day, for instance, alternating with a white one and with darkness — might arise from the presence or absence of one or other, or both, above the horizon. Insulated stars of a red colour, almost as deep as that of blood, occur in many parts of the heavens, but no green or blue star (of any decided hue) has, we believe,...
Page 511 - On it place a globe, two feet in diameter; this will represent the Sun; Mercury will be represented by a grain of mustard seed, on the circumference of a circle 164 feet in diameter for its orbit; Venus a pea, on a circle 284 feet in diameter; the Earth also a pea, on a circle of 430 feet; Mars a rather large pin's head, on a circle of 654 feet...
Page 507 - The rings of Saturn must present a magnificent spectacle from those regions of the planet which lie on their enlightened sides, appearing as vast arches spanning the sky from horizon to horizon, and holding an invariable situation among the stars. On the other hand, in the region beneath the dark side, a solar eclipse of fifteen years...

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