The Geography of the Heavens and Class-book of Astronomy: Accompanied by a Celestial Atlas

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Mason Brothers, 1856 - Astronomy - 338 pages

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Page 44 - Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, Or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? Or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?
Page 156 - Towards the morning of the 13th of November, 1799, we witnessed a most extraordinary scene of shooting meteors. Thousands of bodies and falling stars succeeded each other during four hours. Their direction was very regular from north to south. From the beginning of the phenomenon there was not a space in the firmament equal in extent to three diameters of the moon which was not filled every instant with bodies or falling stars. All the meteors left luminous traces or phosphorescent bands behind them,...
Page 114 - Look, how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines* of bright gold: There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st, But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim: Such harmony is in immortal souls; . But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Page 49 - And, scatter'd o'er the earth, the shining fragments lay. The breathless Phaeton, with flaming hair, Shot from the chariot, like a falling star, That in a summer's evening from the top Of heaven drops down, or seems at least to drop ; Till on the Po his blasted corpse was hurl'd, Far from his country, in the western world.
Page 157 - The first appearance was that of fireworks of the most imposing grandeur, covering the entire vault of heaven with myriads of fireballs, resembling skyrockets.
Page 278 - The inclination of the Earth's axis to the plane of the ecliptic causes the equinoctial to depart 23° 28
Page 47 - And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; and the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
Page 108 - Hail, great physician of the world, all hail; Hail, mighty infant, who, in years to come Shalt heal the nations and defraud the tomb; Swift be thy growth ! thy triumphs unconfin'd ! Make kingdoms thicker, and increase mankind.
Page 143 - To God's eternal house direct the way, A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold, And pavement stars, as stars to thee appear Seen in the galaxy, that milky way Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest Powder'd with stars.
Page 76 - Nor closed in sleep his ever-watchful eyes. There view'd the Pleiads, and the Northern Team, And great Orion's more refulgent beam, To which, around the axle of the sky, The Bear, revolving, points his golden eye : Who shines exalted on the ethereal plain, Nor bathes his blazing forehead in the main.

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