Note 51 — CONTENTS. (continued 6)

The Astronomer-Royal once told me that he had found that few persons have a clear conception of the fact that the stars rise and set. Still fewer know how the stars move, which stars rise and set, which are always above the horizon, which move on large circles, which on small ones; though a few hours' observation on half-a-dozen nights in the year (such observations being continuous, but made only at hourly intervals) would show dearly how the stars move. It is odd to find even some who write about astronomy making mistakes on matters so elementary. For instance, in a primer of astronomy recently published, it is stated that the stars which pass overhead in London rise and set on a slant—the real fact being that those stars never rise or set at all, never coming within some two dozen moon-breadths of the horizon.