Chapter V · FOURTH DAY. (continued 2)

Reason, as well as supernatural revelation, asserts the reality of a Divine providence. The happiest inquirers into the phenomena of nature have discovered that every thing is made with the justest proportion, and that the whole machine is directed according to the most exact rules: but they have also perceived a power above and beyond the energy of natural principles, and which could not possibly be accounted for any other way than by admitting an immediate act or influence of the supreme Being. In the revolving of the celestial orbs, we observe an exact agreement with the established laws of mechanism: but, yet, there is a force demonstrable in them which is altogether immechanical; and, consequently, immediately issuing from God himself.

The remarks made by Dr. A. Clarke on this point, will, it is presumed, gratify the intelligent reader. “The double motion of a primary planet, namely, its annual revolution and diurnal rotation, is one of the greatest wonders the science of astronomy presents to our view.—The laws which regulate the latter of these motions are so completely hid from man, notwithstanding his present great extension of philosophic research, that the times which the planets employ in their rotations can only be determined by observation. How is it that two motions, so essentially different from each other, should be in the same body, at the same time, without one interfering at all with the other?—No astronomer, since the foundation of the world, has been able to demonstrate that the earth’s motion in the heavens is at all accelerated or retarded by the diurnal rotation; or, on the other hand, that the earth’s motion on its axis experiences the least irregularity from the annual revolution.”

The rotation of the earth round its own axis, from west to east, once in 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds, is the cause of the distinction between day and night, by bringing the different parts of the earth’s surface successively into, and from under the solar rays. And the revolution of the earth round the sun, from any equinox or solstice to the same point again, in 365 days, 48 minutes, 48 seconds, produces the agreeable vicissitudes of the seasons, and measures the length of our year. For though the revolution is that of the earth, yet both the hours of the day and night, the different lengths of the days and nights, and the seasons of the year, cannot be determined but by the heavenly bodies. Thus the earth has a two-fold motion, like a chariot-wheel; for while it goes forward on its annual journey, it is still in its diurnal motion turning upon its own centre. But it differs from the motion of a chariot-wheel in this: that its hourly motion in its orbit is 75,222 miles; and that by the motion upon its axis, the inhabitants on the equator are carried after the rate of 1,042 miles an hour, and those upon the parallel of London 580 miles.

The Dr. proceeds, “How wonderful is this contrivance! and what incalculable benefits result from it! The uninterrupted and equable diurnal rotation of the earth gives us day and night in their succession, and the annual revolution causes all the varied scenery of the year. If one motion interfered with the other, the return of the day and night would be irregular; and the change of seasons attended with uncertainty to the husbandman. These two motions are, therefore, harmoniously impressed upon the earth, that the gracious promise of the great Creator might be fulfilled, ’While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease.’

“The double motion of a secondary planet is still more singular than that of its primary; for (taking the moon for an example) besides its particular revolution round the earth, which is performed in 27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes, 4½ seconds; it is carried round the sun with the earth once a year. Of all the planetary motions, with which we have a tolerable acquaintance, that of the moon is the most intricate: upwards of twenty equations are necessary, in the great majority of cases, to reduce her mean to her true place; yet not one of them is derivable from the circumstance that she accompanies the earth in its revolution round the sun. They depend on the different distances of the earth from the sun in its annual revolution, the position of the lunar nodes, and various other causes, and not on the annual revolution itself, a motion which, of all others, might be expected to cause greater irregularities in her revolution round the earth than could be produced on that of the latter by the planetary attractions. Who can form an adequate conception of that influence of the earth which thus draws the moon with it round the sun, precisely in the same manner as if it were a part of the earth’s surface, notwithstanding the intervening distance of about 240,000 miles; and, at the same time, leaves undisturbed the moon’s proper motion round the earth? And what beneficent purposes are subserved by this harmony? In consequence of it, we have the periodical returns of new and full moon; and the ebbing and flowing of the sea, which depend on the various lunar phases, with respect to the sun and earth, (as if demonstrable from each of these phases being continually contemporaneous with the particular phenomenon of the tides,) always succeed each other with a regularity necessarily equal to that of the causes which produce them. Thus we see that God is continually present, supporting all things by his energy, and that, while his working is manifest, his ways are past finding out.”

Thomson, in his descriptive, philosophical, moral, and religious poem, admirably well delineates the revolving seasons.

He who governs the whole frame of nature, and directs and regulates these successive changes, must possess almighty power, without which, he would be infinitely inadequate to the task. He who made the celestial orbs of such a prodigious bulk, and whirls them round with an almost incredible swiftness, causing the regular return of day and night, summer and winter, what can he not do? None among the mighty host of heaven, or among the inhabitants of the earth, can resist his power, or stay his arm when lifted up. He who created all things out of nothing, could, if he pleased, extinguish the lights of heaven, and shake the solid earth to atoms. How easily, then, can he stop our breath, break the slender thread of life, dissolve our feeble frame, or hurl guilty and impenitent sinners into the pit of destruction! He who brought darkness for the space of three days upon the Egyptians, and a dreadful tempest of forty days and forty nights upon the inhabitants of the old world, can make the days of the ungodly darkness, and their nights full of horror. He can strike them with “the arrow that flieth by day,” his swift pointed lightning; or with the pestilential vapors of the night, which “walk in darkness,” and give the deadly stroke unseen.

Shall not, then, such a frail creature as man, think and speak of this omnipotent Being with the greatest reverence and profound humility? Oh God, fill the minds of all men with just and enlarged views of thy majesty and greatness! for thou killest, and thou makest alive; thou woundest, and thou healest: neither is there any that can deliver out of thy hand.

Divine wisdom also shines forth in the regular and uninterrupted succession of the seasons. “The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, and by understanding established the heavens.” Not only the different magnitudes of the heavenly orbs, but their particular distances, and the harmonious laws by which they move, do loudly proclaim, that he who formed, ranges, and actuates them all, must be infinitely wise. Without looking into boundless space, where shine many thousand globes of light, or fixed stars, supposed to be suns like our own, and to have planets revolving round them, we may discover luminous displays of Divine wisdom in our own system, in the constant succession of the seasons, that may justly excite our wonder and adoration. How wise must he be who has so exactly proportioned the different magnitudes of the earth and the sun, and placed them at a proper distance from each other! Is not equal wisdom discovered in that equable, steady, swift, and complicate motion of the earth, by which the delightful and necessary succession of the seasons return? It is the wisdom of God that at first arranged the motion of the celestial bodies, and that preserves them in their rapid and yet regular progressions and rotations, with so much order and harmony. “How manifold, oh Lord, are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all. Thy understanding is infinite, for thou tellest the number of the stars, and callest them all by their names.”

The goodness of God to the inhabitants of the earth, is also displayed in the revolving seasons. When the almighty Creator took a survey of all the works his hands had made, he saw that they were good; not only conformable to eternal reason, but proper to answer the end for which he designed them. And this goodness manifested in the formation of the world, is not more clearly discovered in any thing than in the return of day and night, heat and cold, summer and winter. We are pleased with the light in the morning, but it is after we have rested well in the night: when a few hours are spent, we grow weary of the light, and wish for the return of the silence and darkness of the nocturnal season. After a long cold winter, we joyfully welcome the approach of summer; but when scorched a few months with its heat, and ready to faint, the return of winter is not so unpleasant to us as it appeared more early in the spring. But whatever effect these successions may have upon us, it is certain they are very beneficial. The light of the day is advantageous for managing the toils and business of life; and the coolness and stillness of the night are as suitable for rest and sleep. The summer’s heat is necessary for ripening the fruits of the earth, and hastening the harvest: but the winter’s cold and hoary frost are subservient to prepare the earth for the seed, and render it fertile. Nay, this dreary season is serviceable both to man and beast; it tends to remove distempers contracted in the summer’s unwholesome air, and gives a new spring and vigor to nature. How great, then, is the Divine goodness in preserving the constant and regular revolution of these seasons, so pleasant and beneficial to mankind! “Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men.”

We cannot but perceive the faithfulness of God in continuing these seasons, according to his promise, to this period. We still see day succeeding day, and year succeeding year: this covenant made with mankind is inviolably kept. The husbandman cultivates his land, ploughs up the furrows, casts in the seeds, in hope of the ensuing harvest, when he expects that his expense, labor, and patience, will be recompensed with a rich and large increase. But should God, in anger, open the bottles of heaven, pour down the rain in torrents, cause swelling floods to arise, and, rolling with alarming impetuosity forward, to sweep away at once the fruit of all his toil, how great must be his grief and astonishment! Such were the consternation and confusion that seized mankind at the time of the flood. The husbandman had tilled his land, thrown his seed into the ground; he saw it with pleasure springing up, and promised himself a plentiful harvest: when quickly, all the flood-gates of heaven were opened, all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and a rapid current overflowed the springing corn, swept away numerous flocks of cattle, overthrew the habitations of the people, and drowned man and beast to the very tops of the mountains! But in this general ruin, Noah found favor with God, and he and his family were preserved in the Ark. When the waters had abated, and the earth became dry, this pious patriarch, being much affected with the awful judgment inflicted upon mankind, especially with the distinguishing mercies conferred upon himself and family, offered sacrifice, in testimony of his gratitude, to his great Deliverer, who was well-pleased with it. And on this, he made a covenant with him, and with all his posterity, in which he promises that he will not again curse the ground for man’s sake, nor any more smite every living thing, but that, “while the earth remaineth,” the successive seasons of the year shall be continued. The awful disobedience of the inhabitants of the old world rendered it necessary to inflict so dreadful a judgment; but as soon as it had subsided, God promised never to punish mankind again so universally. And, in token of his faithfulness, he set the rainbow in the cloud, to be a sign of his covenant, which has not been broken, but faithfully kept even to this day. However the Almighty may contend in anger with particular nations or provinces, he will no more do so with mankind in general.

How happy is the situation of our native isle! There are few countries, if any, that exceed it. The climate is temperate; neither days nor nights are ever of immoderate length; the summer and winter are neither extremely hot, nor excessively cold; the seed-time and harvest are generally favorable, and the produce of the land is plenteous. The inhabitants of some countries endure a long and severe winter, seeing not the sun for many weeks: nay, there are some places where it rises not for several months; but these parts are not inhabited in the winter season. In other countries, the inhabitants are scorched with the rays of a vertical sun, and wish in vain for the cooling winter’s snow. Some know not what is meant by the heat of summer, and others are as ignorant of the cold of winter. Some see the sun, but comparatively feel not his warming influence; while others are penetrated with his burning rays all the year. But the people of this country have moderate summer, heat sufficient for ripening the most useful fruits, and winter that may be well endured. The days are not so hot in the summer, but the nights are sufficiently cool for allaying the heat; and they are long enough in winter for managing the business that is requisite to be done. Some warmer climates produce more delicious fruits: but no country under the canopy of the heavens does more abound with all the substantial supports of life; not only equal to our own consumption, but frequently to enable us to assist our neighbors. Happy are the people that are in such a case: yea, thrice happy are they whose God is Jehovah. All his works praise him: may we join the grand chorus, and bless his holy name. Surely, if the works of creation were attentively viewed, and seriously considered, they would not only be truly admired, but their glorious Author would be sincerely regarded, diligently worshipped, and practically obeyed.

The following table has been ascribed to the illustrious astronomer, Dr. Herschell. It is constructed upon a philosophical consideration of the attraction of the sun and moon in their several positions respecting the earth, and confirmed by the experience of many years: actual observation will, without trouble, suggest to the observer what kind of weather will most probably follow the moon’s entrance into any of her quarters; and that so near the truth, that in very few instances will it be found to fail.

New or Full Moon. Summer. Winter.

If it be new or full moon, or the moon enters into the first or last quarters at the hour of 12 Very rainy. Snow and rain.

Between hours of 2 and 4 Changeable. Fair and mild.

4 - 6 Fair. Fair.

6 - 8 Fair, if wind N.W. Rainy, if S. or S.W. Fair and frosty, if N. or N.E. Rainy, if S. or S.W.

8 - 10 Ditto. Ditto.

10 and Midnight Fair. Fair and frosty.

Midnight and 2 Ditto. Hard frost, unless wind S. or S.W.

2 - 4 Cold, with frequent showers. Snow and Stormy.

4 - 6 Rain. Ditto.

6 - 8 Wind and rain. Stormy.

8 - 10 Changeable. Cold, rain if W. snow if E.

10 and Noon Frequent showers. Cold with high wind.

Hence, the nearer the time of the moon’s entrance, at full and change, or quarters, is to midnight (that is, within two hours before or after midnight), the more fair weather is in summer, but the nearer to noon the less fair. Also, the moon’s entrance, at full, change, and quarters, during six of the afternoon hours, viz. from four to ten, may be followed by fair weather; but this is mostly dependant on the wind. The same entrance, during all the hours after midnight except the two first, is unfavorable to fair weather; the like, nearly, may be observed in winter.127

It is an easy and excellent method of conveying instruction, and impressing it upon the heart, to take occasion from natural objects to raise the mind to things spiritual and divine. The day and night, and their alternate changes, may suggest such thoughts as the following, to a serious mind engaged in meditation.

What a glorious creature is light! How beneficial to this world! How useful, nay, how necessary for managing those employments which could not be done in the night! How unwise, then, is he who postpones the necessary business of the day till night overtake him?—So beneficial, so requisite, is the light of life in the important work of human salvation. Does God allow men a day, a gracious season, and the light of his word, for the good of their souls? Of what extreme folly shall they be guilty, if they neglect the necessary business till the night of death come, and they drop into the grave, where there is neither work, nor wisdom, nor device! Now is the day of grace, and God is favoring them with the light of reason and revelation. May he give them wisdom to improve these advantages, to his glory, and their own happiness! They know not how soon their sun may set, and the night of death come upon them. If it should be before their everlasting interest is secured, they will be lost for ever. Oh Lord, teach us so to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom!

Night comes on apace; I must soon undress, and lie down to sleep. And it cannot be long before I must put off this body, lie down in the grave and sleep in the dust. What shall I do that my soul may not be found naked, but be clothed and adorned with the glorious robes of righteousness? Jesus, to whom shall I go but to thee, for thou hast the words of eternal life!—How awful, and full of horror, is this approaching darkness! If the imperfection of man did not require the rest of sleep, surely it would be a pleasant thing always to dwell in the light. Will it not then, be unspeakably delightful to abide in the light of God’s countenance, to see the Divine Majesty with a strong and open eye? and to behold his unutterable glories without any fear of being deprived of the beatific vision, or of returning night? But oh! how dismal must that place of darkness be where the light never shines! where the miserable inhabitants never see one beam of Divine light, one ray from God’s reconciled face! where the grossest darkness reigns for ever, without the least hope of returning day! and where nothing remains for them, but a black, a horrible, an eternal night!

The successive changes of day and night may suggest what is frequently the condition of good people in this world. Their day of prosperity is sometimes followed with a night of adversity; and then, when sorrow and weeping have endured for a night, light and joy spring up in the morning.—Is the light of the day pleasing? rejoice in it with trembling, for the night is advancing. Is the darkness of the night solemn and awful? rejoice in hope that the day is approaching. Hence be instructed, oh my soul, in the concerns of thy eternal welfare. Are prosperity, health, and relatives, agreeable? rejoice in them as one that rejoices not: these must have an end; and adversity, sickness, and death, will come. Are losses, affliction, and pain, not joyous, but grievous? mourn as one that weeps not: ease, health, and gladness, are in prospect, and will continue for ever. And how happy and glorious will that world be, where light and joy shall never cease! But how dreadful is that abode where darkness, despair, and anguish shall never end!

The succession of cold and heat, winter and summer, will always suggest pious and useful reflections in retirement. How pleasing it is to see the sun return, and to feel his cheering rays, after a long, cold, and tempestuous winter! So it is delightful to the humble penitent sinner, after a long season of darkness and sorrow, when the Sun of Righteousness arises with his reviving influences, and God lifts upon him the smiles of his reconciled countenance. All misery, and clouds of doubt and fear, are then dispersed, and heavenly light breaks into the soul, and fills it with gladness. And does the want of the light of God cause the serious Christian to mourn and weep, and taste no sweetness in any of the comforts of life? How extremely miserable, then, must a person be, who is driven to an everlasting distance from the presence of God, and from the glorious Sun of Righteousness; only to see his glory very remote, but never to feel the reviving beams of his love; and to be punished in hell, far “from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power.”

Section IV.—The Planets and Fixed Stars.

Mercury — Venus — The Earth — Mars — Ceres — Pallas — Juno — Vesta — Jupiter — Saturn — Georgium Sidus — Comets — Fixed Stars — Religious Improvement.

Moses, after stating that God created the sun and the moon, says, “he made the stars also.” A learned author explains it, “he made the lesser light, with the stars, to rule the night.” It is very probable that the whole solar system was created in six days: but as the design of the sacred historian was to relate what especially belongs to our globe and its inhabitants, he therefore passes by the planetary system, leaving it simply included in the plural word, שמים shamayim, heavens. In a work of this nature, it is proper to take a concise view of all the planets, their number, distances, magnitudes, revolutions, &c.

Wandering Stars, says Baseley, is one of the many appellations by which our solar system has been sometimes designated. And the figure it makes in the heavens is not unaptly expressed by the phraseology. For we distinguish the planets from the fixed stars by the lustre of the former, which is only from that side which faces the sun, and by their motion, which is seldom, and then but apparently, interrupted. Their brightness seems more uniform, has the cast of reflected rather than direct illumination, and is altogether free from scintillation or twinkling. Their connection with the globe we inhabit is more perceptible, and their relative situation to one another less stationary. Their distance from us is not so remote, and more susceptible of calculation. The latter occupy a certain region situated in our neighborhood between us and the former.

The planets are opake bodies, and nearly spherical. Being opake in themselves, they become visible only by reflecting the light, which they receive from the sun. The laws by which they are governed were discovered by Kepler, who demonstrated that they must necessarily revolve in elliptical, and not in circular orbits. Astronomers have divided them into classes: the primary planets are Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Georgium Sidus; and the second class includes the satellites which belong to some of the primary planets, such as the Moon, the attendant on the Earth, the four moons or satellites that revolve about Jupiter, the seven that attend Saturn, and the six that wait on the Georgium Sidus.

Mercury is the smallest of the seven primary planets, and nearest to the sun; he appears as a small star, and emits a very vivid white light. He was called by the Greeks Στιλβων, plainly alluding to his brightness. Costard observes, “ברק אור Bark-oor, ברק אורי Bark-oori, or, changing the letter ב into מ as letters of the same organ frequently are, מרק אורי Mark-oori, we have in another dialect, with a Latin termination us, another name of this planet, Mercurius; and from whence comes Mercury, as he is called by us.” This planet never goes to a greater distance from the sun than about 27° 50ʹ; so that he appears only a little after sunset, and again a little before sunrise; he is never longer in setting after the sun than an hour and fifty minutes nor does he ever rise more than an hour and fifty minutes before that luminary: he is then about as far as the moon appears to be from the sun on the second day after the change. His mean distance from the sun says Dr. O. Gregory, is to that of the earth from the sun as 387 to 1,000: hence his distance is about thirty-seven millions of miles. To an inhabitant of Mercury, the sun appears almost three times broader than we see him from the earth; because the planet is almost three times nearer to the sun than the earth. Whence also the solar disk, seen from Mercury, is seven times greater than the disk as it appears to us, and Mercury has seven times more light than the earth.

The diameter of this planet is more than one-third of the diameter of the earth, or 3,180 miles. Hence his surface is about 1/7th; and his magnitude 1/16th of that of the earth. His period of revolution round the sun is 87 days, 23 hours, 14 minutes, 33 seconds, which is his year, and falls short of three of our months: hence he moves in his orbit round the sun at the rate of more than 95,000 miles in an hour. According to some astronomers, it has not been ascertained by observation, whether Mercury turns upon his own axis, and therefore it cannot be certainly affirmed that he has the vicissitude of day and night, neither the return of summer and winter: because they depend upon the inclination of the axis of his rotation, which is unknown, to the plane of the orbit which he describes about the sun; though there is very little doubt entertained on the subject. But Schroëter affirms that he “has distinguished spots and mountains, which he has assiduously followed, till he has arrived at the subsequent conclusions: that the apparent diameter of the planet is about 6ʺ; that it does not present any sensible ellipticity; that the mountains it contains are proportionably larger than those of Venus and the Earth; that the highest are, as in these two bodies, in the southern hemisphere; that the angle which the equator makes with its orbit is very considerable; that the difference of days and seasons ought to be much greater in Mercury than it is on the earth; that its atmosphere, like that of Venus, is very dense; and lastly, that its rotation about its axis is 24 hours, 5 minutes, 30 seconds.” When examined by means of a telescope magnifying about 200 or 300 times, he appears equally luminous throughout his whole surface, without the least dark spot. He exhibits the same difference of phases with the moon, being alternately horned, gibbous, and shining almost with a round face, though not entirely full because his enlightened side is never turned directly toward us; but at all times perfectly well defined without any ragged edge, and completely bright; and, like the moon, the crescent is always turned toward the sun. Mercury has no inferior planet known to us, and if that be actually the case, a spectator on his body will want the argument taken from the horned phases of the planets, to establish the true system of the world. But though we do not see any planets inferior to Mercury, it does by no means follow that there are none: for we seldom see Mercury himself, he being buried in the rays of the sun; and a planet much nearer the sun could never be seen from the earth. The first observation that was ever made of a transit, was by Gassendi, who saw Mercury on the sun, A.M. November 7, 1631. Since his time there have occurred seventeen other transits of this planet, the last of which was at his ascending node on the 9th of November, 1802. The ascending and descending nodes are in the 16° of Taurus, and 16° of Scorpio. Other transits are expected in the years 1822, 1832, 1835, 1845, and 1848.

Venus, the second planet from the sun in the order of the system, is the most beautiful star in the heavens, being easily distinguished by her brightness and whiteness, which exceeds that of all the other planets, and is so considerable, that in a dusky night she projects a sensible shadow. Concerning her name, Costard remarks, “From the Chaldee הן Han, or Hen, which signifies gratia, decor, elegantia, with the Æolic digamma Ϝ, comes Fen, or Ven, and with the additional termination us, Venus; the name by which this planet was known among the Romans, and by which, from them, it has been transmitted to us.” The mean distance of Venus from the sun is about 69,000,000 miles; her diameter is 7,630 miles; she performs her revolution round the sun in 224 days, 16 hours, 41 minutes, 27 seconds; her diurnal motion on her axis, according to some observations accurately made by Schroëter, is performed in 23 hours, 21 minutes; and she moves at the rate of 81,398 miles an hour.

This planet constantly attends the sun, and never departs from him more than forty-seven degrees, and consequently is never seen at midnight, nor in opposition to that luminary; being visible only for three or four hours in a morning or evening, according as she is before or after the sun. Venus is a morning star when she appears westward of the sun, for she then rises before him, and is among poets called Phosphorus or Lucifer——

but when eastward of the sun, she is an evening star, shining after he is set, and then the poets give her the name Hesperus or Vesper.

She is in each situation, alternately, between nine and ten months, or about 290 days. Pythagoras is said to have first discovered that Hesperus and Phosphorus were one and the same star. “From the name Phosphorus,” says Costard, “it seems as if this is the same star that in Isaiah is called הילל בן שהר Helal-ben-shahar, or Helal, son of the morning; a name given it on account of its remarkable brightness. If so, that is the oldest record of a planet that occurs in any author whatever now extant: this was about the year before Christ 710.”

Venus is frequently seen in the day-time, when in the inferior part of her orbit, at about forty degrees distant from the sun.

To quiet the minds of some superstitious people, greatly alarmed at the appearance of Venus in the day-time, Dr. Halley wrote a small piece, published in the Philosophical Transactions (No. 349) to show that this was nothing extraordinary, and might be expected every eight years. Venus, when viewed through a good telescope, is rarely seen to shine with a full face, but has phases just like those of the moon, being now gibbous, now horned, &c., and her illuminated part constantly turned towards the sun, looking toward the east when a morning star, and toward the west when an evening star. M. de la Hire, in 1700, through a telescope of sixteen feet, discovered mountains in Venus, which he found to be larger than those in the moon. These observations have recently been confirmed by M. Schroëter, who, in the year 1780, commenced a course of observations on this planet, the results of which were published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1792.

Venus, as well as Mercury, is sometimes seen to transit the sun’s disk, in form of a dark round spot; but these transits seldom happen. The first that was ever observed, was seen by our countryman Jeremiah Horrox, at Hool, an obscure village fifteen miles north of Liverpool: his account of which was published by Hevelius at Dantzic in 1661, under the title, “Venus in sole visa, anno 1631, November 24.” Mr. Horrox’s friend, William Crabtree, according to his direction, saw this transit at the same time, at Manchester. Two have occurred in the last century, namely, one June 6th, 1761, seen by many astronomers, which excited particular attention by a dissertation published by Dr. Halley in the Philosophical Transactions (No. 348) in which he proposed finding, from that transit, the sun’s parallax, and thence the distance of the earth from the sun: and the other, June 3d, 1769, at 10^h. 10ʹ, according to M. de la Lande, and consequently invisible at Paris and London; but by comparing together two observations made, one at Mexico, and the other to the north of Petersburgh, we perceive the sun’s parallax, was determined with great precision. The transits of Venus, occurring between the years 1631 and 2110, according to the calculations of persons most eminent in astronomical science, are as follow:

1631 December 6

1639 December 4

1761 June 5

1769 June 3

1874 December 8

1882 December 6

2004 June 7

2109 December 10

The Earth is the next planet in order; called by the Greeks Γη, and by the poets Γαια, from γαω to generate, produce, which, says Parkhurst, is from the Hebrew, גאה to grow as a plant, because it produces, or is the mother of all terrestrial things; or in the poetic language of the Orphic hymn to the earth,

The word used by Moses is הארץ haarets, translated earth, whence in the Anglo-Saxon, eard and eord; Danish jord, jorden; Dutch erd and aerd; and Teutonic erd, erde.

The distance of the earth from the sun is about 95,000,000 miles: her orbit round the sun is 597,000,000 miles, and she performs her revolution round the sun, from any equinox or solstice to the same point again, in 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, 57 seconds; of course, her hourly motion in her orbit is 68,000 miles. Her diameter is 7,964 miles, her circumference is 25,000 miles, and the time of rotation upon her axis, from west to east, is 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds: by which the inhabitants upon the equator are carried after the rate of 1,042 miles an hour, and those upon the parallel of London, 580 miles, as we have already noticed. The annual and diurnal motion of the earth is thus described by Milton:

From this circumstance arises the apparent diurnal revolution of all the heavenly bodies from east to west.

“The motion of the earth,” says an intelligent writer, “has so long ceased to be a disputed question, that the arguments on each side are nearly forgotten; and those who do not scruple to adopt the hypothesis of the earth’s motions, are often less acquainted with the arguments on which it is supported, than they would have been in former times, when their opinions must have been the subjects of fierce contention.” La Place observes, “that if the earth be at rest, and the stars move, the velocity of these latter must be immense; and yet all the purposes thereof might have been answered by a moderate motion of the earth alone. The moon’s distance from the earth is 240,000 miles; of course, the length of the tract which it traverses, if it moves round the earth in 24 hours, is about 1,500,000; that is, at the rate of 62,500 miles an hour, instead of 2,290 miles, which is really the case: consequently, in each second of time, the moon, known to be the slowest of all the heavenly bodies, must move more than seventeen miles. Again, the sun’s mean distance from the earth is about 95,000,000 miles; consequently, the diurnal path of that luminary, if it revolve about our globe in twenty-four hours, must be 580,000,000: and therefore, in a single second, the beat of a clock, he must move nearly 7,000 miles. Upon the same principle; that is, supposing the earth to be the centre of the system, and not the sun, the planet Mars, in a second of time, must travel at the rate of more than 10,000 miles, Jupiter 36,000, and Saturn 62,000. And, lastly, the fixed stars being yet indefinitely more remote from the earth than the sun or Saturn, their motion in or near the equator must be vastly swifter than this. If the earth does not move round the sun, the sun must move with the moon round the earth; now; the distance of the sun to that of the moon is nearly 400 to 1, and the period of the moon being about twenty-eight days, the sun’s period should be, by the law above mentioned, full 600 years, whereas, it is, in fact, but a single year. This consideration was, of itself, thought of weight enough to determine the controversy between the two opinions, and to establish the motion of the earth in its orbit for ever.”

That the shape of the earth was an extended plane, and the visible horizon its utmost bounds, was the opinion of the ancients. But that it is globular, a little raised at the equator, and flattened at the poles, being about thirty-seven miles shorter than at the equator, so as nearly to resemble an orange, is demonstrable on the most evident and unquestionable principles. 1. All the appearances of the heavens, both at land and at sea, are the same as they would be if the earth were a globe. Mariners first begin to lose sight of the lower parts of objects, and then gradually of the higher parts; also, persons on shore first discover the masts before the hull of approaching vessels, and on leaving a port the masts are seen when the hull is out of sight, which must be owing to the convexity of the water between the eye and the object, otherwise the largest and most conspicuous parts would have been visible the longest.

2. Navigators sailing round the globe, as Magellan, Drake, Lord Anson, Cook, and others, have steered their course directly south and west till they came to the Magellanic sea, and from thence to the north and west, till they returned to their port from the east; and all the phenomena which should naturally arise from the earth’s rotundity, happened to them. Beside, their method of sailing was also founded upon this hypothesis, which could not have succeeded so happily, if the earth had been of any other figure. 3. In all lunar eclipses, the shadow of the earth falling upon the moon is always circular; and a body can be no other than a globe, which in all situations casts a circular shadow. It is true, the surface of the earth is not an exact geometrical globe: but what the earth loses of its sphericity by its inequalities, as writers on this subject have remarked, is very inconsiderable: the highest mountains bearing so little proportion to its bulk, as scarcely to be equivalent to the minutest protuberance on the surface of an orange, or a grain of dust to a common globe.

It is not so easy as some imagine, says a German philosopher and divine, to determine exactly the size of the earth. It is true, there is but one longitude; but there are two latitudes, the north and the south. Both of these begin at the equator; the one extends northward, the other southward, as far as the arctic and antarctic poles. But, no one has yet been able to reach either pole. The mountains of ice in Greenland and the Northern Sea, have always obstructed the passage to the north pole: and immense fields, mountains, and islands of ice, have rendered the passage to the south pole impossible. Thanks, however, to the geometricians, we can at present know very nearly the size of our globe. According to the most exact calculations, the surface of the earth is 199,512,595 square miles. The seas and unknown parts of the earth, by a measurement of the best maps, contain 160,522,026 square miles. The inhabited parts contain about 38,990,559 square miles, in the following proportion: Europe—4,456,065; Asia—10,768,823; Africa—9,654,807; America—14,110,874: Hence it appears that scarcely one-third of the globe is habitable. It has been calculated, that there might be at least three thousand millions of men upon the earth at once: but in reality there are no more than about a thousand and eighty millions: of which there are, in Asia—650 millions; in Africa—150; in America—150; in Europe—130.

The path traversed by the earth, which, in astronomical language, is called its orbit, is the apparent path of the sun: it is called the ecliptic, because eclipses, both solar and lunar, always happen in this circle—also via solis, or the sun’s path, because the sun never departs from it; and, therefore, at any time to denote the sun’s place in the heavens, astronomers have divided the whole circle of the earth’s motion in 360 equal parts, which they term degrees, and every thirty of these a sign, of which there are twelve. In this circle the sun advances nearly one degree every twenty-four hours, and thirty degrees every month; thus passing through the whole 360 degrees in a year. The signs are called by different names, and, with regard to their situations and corresponding seasons and months, they stand in the following order:

Northern Signs; so denominated as being north of the Equator.

Spring. Aries ♈, the Ram, part of March and April. Taurus ♉, the Bull, April and May. Gemini ♊, the Twins, May and June.

Summer. Cancer ♋, the Crab, June and July. Leo ♌, the Lion, July and August. Virgo ♍, the Virgin, August and September.

Southern Signs; so called as being south of the Equator.

Autumn. Libra ♎, the Balance, September and October. Scorpio ♏, the Scorpion, October and November. Sagittarius ♐, the Archer, November and December.

Winter. Capricornus ♑, the Goat, December and January. Aquarius ♒, the Water-bearer, January and February. Pisces ♓, the Fishes, February and March.

The order of the signs is thus poetically described by Dr. Watts.

Dr. Long observes, that ♈ represents the horns of the ram; ♉ the head and horns of the bull; ♊ the figure of gemini, the twins joining hands and feet; the character cancer ♋ represents the changes of the sun’s declination from north to south, by two lines or figures drawn so as to point two contrary ways; ♌ is the tail of the lion; ♍ was originally the three ears of corn which Virgo held; ♎ is the beam of the balance; ♏ was at first the picture of the scorpion; ♐ the arrow of the Archer; ♑ represents capricorn, the goat-fish; ♒ is a natural representation of the water’s undulating surface; ♓ is the picture of two fishes tied together back to back.

The figures of the twelve signs are supposed by Dr. Jennings, and other astronomers, to be Egyptian hieroglyphics, by which they designed to exhibit some remarkable natural occurrence in each month, as the sun passed through these signs. Thus the first three months, beginning from the vernal equinox, were remarkable for the production of those animals which they most valued, namely, sheep, kine, and goats. The lambs came first, which are represented by their parent, the Ram; next the calves, represented by the Bull; and the kids, which commonly come in pairs, and which, therefore, gave the name to Gemini, the third constellation; which was not at first represented by Two Boys, but by Two Beasts; as referring to the fruitfulness of goats, in producing twin kids about the time when the sun was in that constellation. When, in the fourth month, the sun is arrived at the summer solstice, he discontinues his progress towards the north pole, and begins to go back again to the southward; this retrograde motion the Egyptians expressed by the Crab, which is said to go backwards. The excessive heat that usually follows in the next month, is signified by the Lion; an animal remarkable for his strength and fierceness; or, as others observe, when that animal, driven by thirst from the desert, made his appearance on the banks of the Nile. Nothing could be more proper than the symbol for the harvest: namely, the Virgin reaper or gleaner with an ear of corn in her hand. The seventh constellation, when the sun arrives at the autumnal equinox, is expressed by the Balance or Scales, in equilibrio, because the days and nights, being then of the same length, seemed to indicate an equilibrium like that instrument. October is often a sickly season, when the surfeits acquired in the hot months of the summer produce their fatal effects; the symbol is therefore the Scorpion, who wounds with a sting in his tail, as he recedes; or, according to others, when certain regular winds brought forth a burning vapor like the poison of the scorpion. The diversion of hunting, which is chiefly followed after the fall of the leaf, is designated by Sagittarius, or the archer. The Goat, which is an animal that delights to browse up hill and to climb the highest rocks, is the emblem of the winter solstice, when the sun begins to ascend from the southern tropic, and is continually mounting higher and higher for the ensuing half year. Aquarius, or the Water-bearer, fitly represents the rains, or snows, of the winter. And the Two Fishes in a band, had, it is imagined, reference to the prime fishing season, which began in February.

The names given to our months originated as follows:

The name given to the month of January by the Romans was taken from Janus, one of their divinities, to whom they gave two faces; because on the one side, the first day of this month looked towards the new year, and on the other towards the old one. It was called wolf-monat by our Saxon ancestors, on account of the danger they then experienced from wolves. Some etymologists derive February from Februa, an epithet given to Juno, as the goddess of purification; while others attribute the origin of the name to Februa, a feast held by the Romans in this month, in behalf of the manes of the deceased. The Saxons named February sprout kele, on account of the sprouts of the cole-wort which began to appear in this month. Among the Romans, March, from Mars, was the first month, and marriages made in this month were accounted unhappy. The Saxons called March lent-monat, or length-moneth, “because the days did first begin, in length, to exceed the nights.”—April is derived from Aprilis, of aperio, I open; because the earth, in this month, begins to open her bosom for the production of vegetables. The Saxons called this month oster-monat, from the goddess Eoster, or because the winds were found to blow generally from the east in this month.—May is so called from Maia, the mother of Mercury, to whom sacrifices were offered by the Romans on the first of this month; or, according to some, from respect to the senators and nobles of Rome, who were named Majores, as the following month was termed Junius, in honor of the youth of Rome. The Saxons called May, tri-milki, because, in that month, they began to milk their kine three times in the day.—The Saxons called June weyd-monat, because their beasts did then weyd or feed in the meadows.—The word July is derived from the Latin Julius, the surname of C. Cæsar, the dictator, who was born in it. Mark Antony first gave to this month the name of July, which was before called Quintilis, as being the fifth month in the year, in the old Roman calender established by Romulus. July was called by the Saxons, hew-monat, or hey-monat, because therein they usually mowed, and made their hay-harvest.—Sextilis was the ancient Roman name for September, it being the sixth month from March. The Emperor Augustus changed this name, and gave it his own, because in this month Cæsar Augustus took possession of his first consulship, celebrated three triumphs, reduced Egypt under the power of the Roman people, and put an end to all civil wars. “The Saxons called August arn-monat (more rightly barn-monat,) intending thereby the then filling of their barnes with corne.” September is composed of septem, seven, and the termination ber, like lis in Aprilis, Quintilis, Sextilis. This rule will also apply to the three following months, Octo-ber. Novem-ber, Decem-ber. Our Saxon ancestors called it Gerst-monat, “for that barley which that moneth commonly yielded was anciently called gerst.”—October was called Domitianus in the time of Domitian: but, after his death, by the decree of the senate, it took the name of October, every one hating the name and memory of so detestable a tyrant. It was called wyn-monat, or wine month, by the Saxons—The Saxons called November wint-monat, or wind-month, on account of the prevalence of high winds in this month.—December was called winter-monat by the Saxons; but, after they were converted to Christianity, it received the name of heligh-monat, or holy month.129

The names of our days are of Heathen origin. The seven planets were anciently looked on as presiding over the affairs of the world, and to take it by turns each one hour at a time, according to the following order: Saturn first, then Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and last of all, the Moon. Hence they denominated each day of the week from the planet whose turn it was to preside the first hour of the nychthemeron, a term compounded of νυξ, night, and ἡμερα, day, which implies both night and day, and is divided into twenty-four parts, called hours. Thus, assigning the first hour of Saturday to Saturn, the second will fall to Jupiter, the third to Mars, and so the twenty-second of the same nychthemeron will fall to Saturn again, and therefore the twenty-third to Jupiter, and the last to Mars: so that on the first hour of the next day, it will fall to the Sun to preside; and by the like manner of reckoning, the first hour of the next will fall to the Moon, of the next to Mars, of the next to Mercury, of the next to Jupiter, and the next to Venus: hence the days of the week came to be distinguished by the Latin names of Dies Saturni, Solis, Lunæ, Martis, Mercurii, Jovis, and Veneris. The ancient Saxons had a great many idols, seven of which were appropriated to the seven days of the week, because of some worship that was offered to each idol on its respective day. The northern nations substituted, for the Roman Divinities, such of their own as most nearly resembled them in their peculiar attributes, and hence the derivation of the names now in use. These were Seater, the Sun, the Moon, Tuisco, Woden, Thor, Friga: hence among us the names of Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. For, as Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, plainly denote the day of Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon; so Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, denote the day of Tuisco, Woden, Thor, and Friga, which are the Saxon names respectively answering to Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus. Verstegan, in his “Restitution of Decayed Intelligence,” describes the Saxon deities who presided over each day of the week, and gives plates of the idols, pp. 74-85.

How amazing it is that this ponderous globe should be suspended in the fluid air, without any visible support, and upheld only by the sovereign will of its almighty Creator! His power, who “hangeth the earth upon nothing,” is inconceivably great; and the revolutions of this globe produce the most beneficial effects. The daily rotation of the earth causes the uniform succession of light and darkness; and its annual motion occasions the difference of the length of the days and nights, and the beautiful diversity of the seasons. Many pious Christians, who read the Scriptures to great personal advantage, but who are unacquainted with the science of astronomy, are apt to doubt the truth of the astronomical principles concerning the shape and motion of the earth, because, as Dr. O. Gregory judiciously observes, they think them contrary to divine revelation. Such persons would do well to consider for what purpose the Holy Scriptures were written, whether as a measure of faith, or as a rule to regulate our philosophical notions? Gassendus, though he does not give a direct answer to the question, has made the following very pertinent observations on the subject. “There are,” says he, “two sacred volumes, the one written, called the Bible; the other Nature, or the World; God having manifested himself by two lights, the one of revelation, and the other of demonstration; accordingly the interpreters of the former are divines; of the latter mathematicians. As to matters of natural knowledge, the mathematicians are to be consulted; and as to objects of faith, the prophets; the former being no less interpreters, or apostles, from God to men than the latter. And as the mathematician would be judged to wander out of his province, if he should pretend to controvert, or set aside any article of faith from principles of geometry; so it must be granted, the divines are no less out of their limits, when they venture to pronounce on a point of natural knowledge, beyond the reach of any not versed in geometry and optics, merely from Holy Scripture, which does not pretend to teach any thing of the matter.”

Mars is the first of the four superior planets in order from the sun, his orbit being immediately beyond that of the earth. He was called by the Greeks Αρης, the supposed god of war, which, says Parkhurst, comes from the Hebrew עריץ violent, destructive. Costard remarks, “This planet, I suppose, was called ערע Ara, ערץ Aretz, Αρης, and, in another dialect, מערץ Ma-aretz, or Mars, in a softer pronunciation, from his strong glowing brightness.” He is distinguished from the other planets by the red and fiery appearance, of his disk: whether his ruddy troubled color arises from a natural disposition to reflect the red rays of light best, or from a thick atmosphere attending it, is rather uncertain; but it is generally attributed to the density of his atmosphere.

His figure, like that of the earth, is an oblate spheroid. His mean distance from the sun is 145,000,000 miles, and he travels round that common centre of gravity in about 687 of our days, or 1 year, 321 days, 22 hours, 18 minutes, 27 seconds, which is nearly equal to two of our years; and therefore his velocity in his orbit is at the rate of 55,000 miles an hour. He has likewise a rotation upon his axis, which is performed in 1 day, 39 minutes, 22 seconds. This was discovered by means of spots seen on his surface. Dr. Hook, in 1665, observed several spots, which, having a motion, he concluded that the planet revolved upon its axis. In 1666, M. Cassini saw several spots in the two hemispheres of Mars, which, by continuing his observations very diligently, he found to move from east to west, and to return in the space of 24 hours, 40 minutes, to their former situation. Whence both the motion and period, or natural day of this planet, were determined. In 1781, Dr. Herschell observed the spots of Mars very minutely, from the motion of which he has found his rotation upon his axis to be performed in 24 hours, 39 minutes, 21-2/3 seconds; and he says that there cannot be more than two seconds of uncertainty in this result. The different seasons will take place on this planet very much like what they are known to do upon our earth, with this difference, that the seasons there will be almost as long again as with us, on account of the time he takes in moving round the sun being nearly twice as long as our year. The diameter of Mars being 4,135 miles, he is about 2/11, or less than a fifth, and more than a sixth part as large as the earth; and if any moon attend him, she must be very small, for it has not yet been discovered by the best telescopes of our most eminent astronomers; if without a moon, walking his round in perpetual solitude, he must consequently want that division of time, which, from the moon’s revolution round the earth, is called a month.

From the greater distance of Mars in his orbit than our earth is, the inhabitants there will scarcely see Mercury, unless it be when he appears on the sun’s face, and passes over him like a dark spot, in the same manner as he sometimes does to us. Venus will to them appear somewhat similar to the appearances of Mercury to our earth, the apparent distance from the sun being nearly the same to them as Mercury is to us. Our earth to them, also, will be an inferior planet, or within his orbit, being nearer to the sun, in a way similar to what Venus appears to us, and will alternately be a morning or evening star; and our moon, which will always be seen to accompany her, when in a position to have the benefit of the sun’s light, will not be seen at a greater distance, than about a semi-diameter of the sun or moon from it.

This planet being half as far again from the sun as our earth is, his light and heat are not half so much as our own. When in opposition to the sun, he is found to be five times nearer to us than when in conjunction; and, therefore, he appears so much bigger and brighter at one time than another. In 1719, his apparent magnitude and brightness were so much increased, that, by the uninformed, he was taken for a new star.

The telescopic appearance of Mars is very variable. This planet exhibits larger and more remarkable spots than any of the others. The belts and cloudy appearances are found to change their shape and arrangement frequently. The predominant brightness of the polar regions leads to the supposition that those parts of his surface, like the poles of the earth, are intensely frozen, or always covered with snow; and Dr. Herschell imagines that the changes in brightness are connected with the summer and winter seasons on that planet. The phases of Mars were first discovered by Galileo. Having his light from the sun, and revolving round it, he has an increase and decrease like the moon. At his quadratures, he appears gibbous, but never horned, like Venus, Mercury, and the Moon; which shows, that his orbit includes that of the earth, and that it is from the sun that he receives his light.

Between the orbit of Mars and that of Jupiter, the smaller planetary bodies, lately discovered, revolve. Ceres was discovered on the 1st of January, 1801, by M. Piazzi, astronomer at Palermo, in the island of Sicily. When viewed through a good telescope, it is of a ruddy color, appears to be of the size of a star of the eighth magnitude, and surrounded with a dense atmosphere. Her mean distance from the sun is 260,000,000 miles; and her revolution is performed in 4 years, 7 months, 10 days. Dr. Herschell and Schroëter differ very much as to the magnitude of this planet; the former says the diameter is only 160 miles, but the latter makes it more than ten times greater, or 1,624 miles. Pallas was discovered on the 28th of March, 1802, by Dr. Olbers, of Bremen. Its mean distance from the sun 270,000,000 miles; its diameter 80 miles; and it performs its revolution in about 4 years, 280 days. Juno was discovered on the 1st of September, 1804, by M. Harding, of Lilienthal. Its mean distance from the sun is 290,000,000 miles; and its diameter is 119 miles, and the time of revolution round the sun 5 years, 181 days. Vesta was discovered by Dr. Olbers, on the 29th of March, 1807. It is nearer to Mars than either of the other newly discovered planets; and the revolution through its orbit is performed in less time. The size of this planet is not known. Its light is more intense, pure, and white, than any of the other three.

A century and half ago it was conjectured, says a very intelligent author, that there must be a planet between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, on account of the distance subsisting between those two planets. The discovery of Ceres confirmed this happy conjecture; but the opinion which it seemed to establish respecting the harmony of the solar system, appeared to be completely overturned by the discovery of Pallas and Juno. Dr. Olbers, willing to find a theory that should account for the facts newly ascertained, imagined that these small celestial bodies were merely the fragments of a larger planet, which had burst asunder by some internal convulsion, and that several more might yet be discovered between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. He therefore concluded, that though the orbits of all these fragments might be differently inclined to the ecliptic, yet, as they must have all diverged from the same point, they ought to have two common points of re-union, or two nodes in opposite regions of the heavens, through which all the planetary fragments must sooner or later pass. One of these nodes Dr. Olbers found to be in Virgo, and the other in the Whale; and it was actually in the latter of these regions that M. Harding discovered the planet Juno. With the intention, therefore, of detecting other fragments of the supposed planet, Dr. Olbers examined, thrice every year, all the little stars in the opposite constellation of the Virgin and the Whale, till his labors were crowned with success, by the discovery of a new planet in the constellation of Virgo, to which he gave the name of Vesta.

The existence of four planets between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, (continues the same author,) revolving round the sun at nearly the same distances, and differing from all the other planets in their diminutive size, and in the form and position of their orbits, is acknowledged to be one of the most singular phenomena in the history of astronomy. The discordance of these phenomena with the regularity of the planetary distances, and with the general harmony of the system, naturally suggests the opinion, that the inequalities in this part of the system were produced by some great convulsion, and that the four planets, as we have already hinted, are the fragments of a large celestial body, which once existed between Mars and Jupiter. To suppose them independent planets, as they must necessarily be if they did not originally form one, their diminutive size, the great eccentricity and inclination of their orbits, and their numerous intersections, when projected on the plane of the ecliptic, are phenomena absolutely inexplicable on every principle of science, and subversive of that harmony and order which before the discovery of these bodies, seemed to pervade the planetary system. Admitting, however, the hypothesis that these planetary bodies, are the remains of a larger body, which circulated round the sun, nearly in the orbit of the greatest fragment, the system resumes its order, and we discover a regular procession in the distances of the planets, and a general harmony in the form and position of their orbits. But, independently of analogical reasoning, the elements of the new planets furnish several direct arguments, drawn from the eccentricity and inclination of their orbits, and from the position of their perihelia and nodes; and all concurring to show, that the four new planets have diverged from one point, and have, therefore, been originally combined in a larger body.

Jupiter is the largest of all the planetary bodies, and, next to Venus the brightest. He was called by the Greeks Ζευς, which is from ζεω, to be hot, or, says Parkhurst, immediately from the Hebrew זי to shine, compounded, perhaps, with יש substance, q.d. the shining substance; a name very justly given to this planet, on account of his strong and clear light.

His mean distance from the sun is 490,000,000 miles, and his diameter is 89,170 miles, or more than 11 times that of the earth, and therefore his magnitude is 1,400 times greater than our earth; of course, as the surface of a globe increases according to the square of its diameter, our earth will, to the inhabitants of Jupiter, appear 121 times less than this noble planet appears to us. His revolution round the sun, from east to west, is performed in 11 years, 315 days, 14 hours, 39 minutes, 2 seconds, which is nearly twelve of our years; and his motion in his orbit is 29,000 miles an hour. He performs his diurnal rotation upon his axis in 9 hours, 55 minutes, 33 seconds, by which motion his equatorial parts are carried round at the amazing rate of 26,000 miles an hour, which is about twenty-five times the velocity of the like parts of our earth. He has, of course, a rapid succession of days, as the poet observes,

The axis of Jupiter is nearly perpendicular to his orbit, so that he has no sensible change of seasons. This is not the work of chance, as Dr. O. Gregory observes, but wisely ordered by the Divine Architect; for if the axis of this planet were inclined any considerable number of degrees, so many degrees round each pole would be almost six years together in darkness. And as each degree of a great circle on this planet contains more than 700 miles, it is natural to conceive, that vast tracts of land would be rendered uninhabitable by any considerable inclination of his axis.

The appearance of this planet, through a telescope, opens a vast field for interesting inquiry. His surface is not equally bright, but variegated with certain bands, or belts, of a dusky appearance: they run parallel to each other, and are continued round the body of the planet. They are not regular or constant in their appearance: sometimes only one is seen; at other times six or eight. The breadth of them is likewise variable; one belt is sometimes becoming narrow, while another, in its neighborhood, grows broader as if one had flowed into the other: in these cases, an oblique belt has been observed to be between them, as if for the purpose of establishing a communication. Sometimes, one or more spots are formed between the belts, which increase till the whole is united in a large dusky belt. There are also bright spots to be discovered on Jupiter’s surface; these are rather more permanent than the belts, and re-appear after unequal intervals of time. The remarkable spot, by whose motion the rotation of Jupiter upon his own axis was first ascertained, disappeared in the year 1694, and was not seen again till 1708, when it re-appeared exactly in the same place, and has been occasionally seen ever since.

Jupiter is enlightened by four moons, or satellites, each of them larger than that with which we are supplied, and which revolve at different distances from that planet. In the solar system the moons, or satellites, revolve round their respective primary planets as centres, in the same manner as the primary planets revolve round the sun. By means of Jupiter’s satellites, a method has been obtained for demonstrating that the motion of light is progressive, and not instantaneous, as was formerly supposed; which discovery is important to the interests of science. M. Huygens, in his Treatise on Light, concludes from these eclipses, that light transmits itself about 600,000 times faster than sound.

Distances and Revolutions of Jupiter’s Satellites.

Revolution.

Satellite Distance. d. h. m.

1st 250,000 1 18 36

2d 401,000 3 13 15

3d 648,000 7 3 59

4th 1,128,000 16 18 30

They are thus referred to by Mallet:

To a spectator placed on the surface of Jupiter, each of the satellites would put on the phases of the moon; but as the distance of any of them from Jupiter is but small, when compared with the distance of that planet from the sun, the satellites are therefore illuminated by the sun very nearly in the same manner with the primary itself; hence they appear to us always round, having constantly the greatest part of their enlightened half turned towards the earth: and indeed they are so small, that were they to put on the phases of the moon, these phases could scarcely be discerned through the best telescopes. When the satellites pass through their inferior semicircles, they may cast a shadow upon their primary, and thus cause an eclipse of the sun to his inhabitants; and in some situations this shadow may be observed going before or following the satellite. On the other hand, in passing through their superior semicircles, the satellites may be eclipsed in the same manner as our moon by passing through the shadow of Jupiter: and this is actually the case with the first, second, and third; but the fourth, by reason of the extent of its orbit, passes sometimes above or below the shadow, as is the case with our moon.

These satellites were first discovered on the 7th of January, 1610, by the celebrated Galileo, who called them Medician Stars, in honor of the family of the Medici, dukes of Tuscany, his patrons. These satellites, revolving about Jupiter at different distances, from west to east, when viewed through a telescope, make a beautiful appearance. As our moon revolves round the earth, enlightening the nights, by reflecting the light she receives from the sun; so these satellites, revolving round Jupiter, may also be supposed to enlighten the nights of that planet.

Saturn is a very conspicuous planet, though he shines with a pale and feeble light, very unlike that of Jupiter and the other planets. He was called by the Greeks φαινων. “From the account given by Diodorus Siculus,” says Costard, “it seems as if the Chaldeans called this planet by some name not widely different from this of the Greeks. In the language of Chaldea, the verb פנא phana, or פנה phanah, signifies convertere se, divertere se, declinare. And whatever vanishes, or disappears, very properly declines, or turns aside, from our view. This planet, therefore, was most probably called פן _phen_, or פין phain, and, with a Greek termination, φαινων, on account of his withdrawing himself, by reason of his distance. And this conjecture is yet further confirmed from his name in another dialect, or among another people. For from סתר sater, latuit, abscondit se, with the paragogic ן nun which is not unusual in the formation of Eastern words, comes the word סתרן Saturn, and with the Latin termination us, Saturnus.”

His mean distance from the sun is 900,000,000 miles, consequently his motion in his orbit is proportionably slow; and his annual revolution round the sun, from west to east, being so much longer likewise than that of the other planets, he takes 29 years, 164 days, 7 hours, 21 minutes, 50 seconds, which is almost thirty of our years, to accomplish it, in his orbit travelling with a velocity of 22,000 miles an hour. His diameter is 79,000 miles; and his magnitude is about 1,000 times that of the earth. The time of rotation upon his axis is 10 hours, 17 minutes.

There is a singular and curious appendage to Saturn, namely, a thin, broad, opake ring, encompassing the body of the planet, without touching it; like the horizon of an artificial globe; it appears to be suspended round the planet, and to keep its place without any immediate connection with it. The distance of this prodigious circle from the body of the planet is usually stated to be about 21,000 miles.

The dimensions of the ring, or of the two rings with the space between them, Dr. Herschell has given as follows:

Miles.

Inner diameter of the smaller ring 146,345

Outside diameter of ditto 184,393

Inner diameter of the larger ring 190,248

Outside diameter of ditto 204,883

Breadth of the inner ring 20,000

Breadth of the outer ring 7,200

Breadth of the vacant space, or dark zone 2,839

It puts on different appearances to us, sometimes being seen quite open, or as a wide oval, and at others, only as a single line. When our eye is in the plane of the ring, or looking at it directly on the edge, it is invisible to us; and it is in this situation twice in each revolution of the planet; that is, once in about fifteen years: at these times, he appears quite round, for nine or ten months together. The ring was invisible to us on the 15th of June, 1803, and, since that time, gradually increased in light and breadth for about seven years: and, after which, has again decreased, till, as before, after an interval of fifteen years, in the present year 1818, the ring is again edgewise to us, and invisible. With telescopes of great magnifying power, two belts or stripes have been discovered on Saturn; they appear parallel to the ring, and are supposed to be permanent. Of what component materials this ring is composed, or by what means it is suspended, we as yet remain ignorant: but of its use, it is supposed to supply light and heat to the planet, agreeably to the observation of a poet who has evinced an extensive acquaintance with philosophy.

Besides the ring, Saturn is also furnished with seven attendant moons, or satellites, which move around him at different distances, in a way similar to those of Jupiter.

Distances and Revolutions of Saturn’s Satellites.

Revolution.

Satellite Distance. d. h. m. s.

1st 172,000 1 21 18 26

2d 217,000 2 17 44 51

3d 315,000 4 12 25 11

4th 705,000 15 22 41 14

5th 2,126,000 79 7 53 42

6th 137,000 1 8 53 9

7th 107,000 0 22 37 30

The sixth and seventh satellites were discovered by Dr. Herschell in 1787 and 1788: they are nearer to Saturn than any of the other five; but, to prevent confusion, they have been called the 6th and 7th. The 5th satellite has been observed by Dr. Herschell to turn once round its axis, exactly in the time in which it revolves round Saturn: in this respect it resembles our moon. Their distance from us is so far, as not to be easily visible, even with a good telescope, unless the air be exceedingly clear.

It was for ages that astronomical science limited the solar system to six planets, and Saturn was considered as its utmost extent. Vitruvius, speaking of the planet Saturn, says, that star “is near the extremity of the world, and touches the frozen regions of heaven.” He did not understand the extent of our planetary system.

It is to the indefatigable application of Dr. Herschell that we are indebted for the discovery of a new planet, which is the fourth of the superior ones then known, and, being at twice the distance of Saturn from the sun, has quadrupled the bounds formerly assigned to the solar system. This planet was discovered on the 13th of March, 1781, and is called by different names: the discoverer bestowed upon it that of Georgium Sidus, in honor of our present venerable and beloved sovereign; by the French it is called Herschell, and by the Italians, Uranus. This important discovery is very deservedly noticed by the Poet Laureat, in his Ode entitled “Carmen Seculare for the year 1800.”

On the 11th January, 1787, Dr. Herschell discovered the second and fourth satellites which attend his own planet the Georgium Sidus; and in the following years, previously to 1791, he observed four others revolving round the same body. Though this celebrated astronomer was the first who discovered the Georgium Sidus to be one of the planets of the solar system, yet no doubt can be entertained of its having been before observed and considered as a fixed star. Flamsteed in 1690, Mayer in 1756, and Monnier in 1769, determined the places of three stars which cannot now be found. And M. La Place, according to his theory of Jupiter and Saturn, has found that the Georgium Sidus was exactly in those three points at those very times. These truly singular occurrences leave no doubt of the identity of these three stars with the new planet. The lines which Mallet applied to Saturn are now, with a little alteration, more applicable to the Georgium Sidus, or Herschell planet.

His mean distance from the sun is about 1,800,000,000 miles, and he performs his revolution from west to east round the sun in 83 years, 294 days, 8 hours, 39 minutes; and in his orbit he moves with a velocity of 15,846 miles an hour. His diameter is 4½ times larger than that of the earth, being more than 35,000 miles; and his magnitude is 80½ times larger than that of the earth. The orbit in which he revolves is nineteen times further from the sun than the earth’s orbit; consequently he has 361 times less light and heat from the sun than we have. Notwithstanding this, his proportion of light is considerable; for having been calculated, it is found to be equal to the effect of 284 of our full moons. When the sky is very serene and clear, and the moon absent, this planet may be perceived with the naked eye, unassisted by a telescope: and it appears as a star of the fifth magnitude, with a blueish white light, and a brilliancy between that of Venus and the Moon.

The want of light arising from the great distance of this planet from the sun, is supplied by six satellites, which revolve at different distances round their primary.

Distances and Revolutions of the Satellites of the Georgium Sidus.

Revolution.

Satellite Distance. d. h. m. s.

1st 226,450 5 21 25 0

2d 293,053 8 17 0 0

3d 342,784 10 23 0 0

4th 392,514 13 11 0 0

5th 785,028 38 1 49 0

6th 1,570,057 107 7 35 10

All these satellites, it has been said, perform their revolutions in their orbits contrary to the order of the signs; that is, their real motion is retrograde, but probably, as suggested by Dr. Hutton, this is an optical illusion.130 As the indefatigable Dr. Herschell has already discovered six satellites belonging to this planet, does not its immense distance from the sun leave some ground for conjecture, that there may remain some undiscovered, and that his attendants are as numerous, if not more so, than those of Saturn?

Characters used for the Sun, Moon, and Planets.

☉ The Sun

☽ The Moon

☿ Mercury

♀ Venus

⊕ The Earth

♂ Mars

♃ Jupiter

♄ Saturn

♅ Herschell, or Georgium Sidus.

The mark which characterises the planet Herschell is the initial of the discoverer’s name, intersected by a cross bar to represent a cross, by which to denote that the discovery of the planet took place after the birth of Christ.

Astronomy produces calculations concerning the magnitudes, distances, and revolutions of the planets, and their respective satellites, which, to the uninformed, appear absurd, chimerical, and presumptuous; while, probably, they laugh at such notions as were received among men, when even the wisest of them were weak enough to believe, that the earth was an immense plain, situated in the centre of the universe; that the vault of heaven was of crystal; and that the sun was no other than a plate of red hot iron, about as large as the Peloponnessus. The following thoughts, communicated by my much esteemed friend Thomas Exley, A. M. may assist such persons to entertain more favorable sentiments of the science of astronomy, and also serve to enlarge their views of the Supreme Being.

“Many persons who have not had the advantages of proper instruction in mathematical science, cannot be persuaded that it is in the power of man to ascertain the distances of the sun, moon, and planets, and, of course, pay little regard to the assertions of astronomers on this subject. Sometimes, they are bold enough to say the thing is impossible, because no one has ever been to any of those bodies. Let such persons consider, that it is not necessary to go to a remote object in order to measure its distance; for that purpose, it will be sufficient to know the length of a line at the place of the spectator, and the inclination of this line to two others directed from its extremities to the object; for, on the length of this line, and the position of the two others, depends the distance of the object from the ends of that line.

“Thus, if I wish to know the distance of a neighboring tower, or other object beyond a river, or in some other way inaccessible; I measure any convenient line terminating in my station, and by some instrument proper for measuring angles, I ascertain the position of my measured line to the lines connecting its extreme points and the object. On these data depends the distance, and from this line and these angles accurately measured, the exact distance may be with great ease truly found. It is on similar principles that astronomers investigate the distances of the heavenly bodies. They take as the given or measured line, which may be called the base, some line on the earth, the semi-diameter for instance, as being the most convenient. The angle formed, or rather contained by two lines drawn from the sun or planet to the ends of the semi-diameter of the earth, is called the parallax, because it shows the difference of the apparent situation of the object as seen from the extremities of the semi-diameter, that is, it measures the arc of a great circle in the heavens contained between its two apparent places. Hence to ascertain its parallax, or difference of the apparent place when the object is viewed from the other end of the semi-diameter, becomes a problem of great importance in astronomy; for this being truly discovered, the distance of the planet will be obtained with the utmost exactitude. If any other line besides the semi-diameter of the earth, whose length and position are known, be used as a base, and the parallax in respect of this line be found, the same conclusions will follow. The chief difficulty in this affair arises from the smallness of the angle to be measured, which is a consequence of the greatness of the distance in respect of the earth’s semi-diameter. Several ingenious methods have been proposed and employed by astronomers to discover the distances of the sun and planets, but nothing serves this purpose so well as the transits of Venus over the sun’s disk. At certain periods, which can be foretold by astronomers, this planet passes exactly between us and the sun, and is seen as a dark round spot for some hours, moving in a line across the sun’s face or disk. The observer should be furnished with a good chronometer, or pendulum clock with seconds, to note the time of the transit; and good instruments, to take the apparent diameters of the sun and Venus, and her greatest distance from the sun’s limb while passing over his disk: from these observations, and the known phenomena of the motions of the earth and Venus, the parallax may be found. But if two observers, at very distant places of the earth properly chosen, make these observations, the parallax may be obtained with much greater ease and nicety; because the distance of the apparent tracks of Venus across the sun as seen from the two places, and also the difference of the time of the passage, arises from the parallax of Venus and that of the sun. The two last transits, which happened in the years 1761 and 1769, were carefully observed for this purpose; and it is to the results of these observations that the present astronomers are indebted for their more accurate knowledge of the distances of the planets, and the dimensions of the solar system.

“It should be observed, that if the parallax, and consequently the distance of any one of the planets by any means becomes known, the same is easily obtained for each of the other planets, from the relation which has been clearly discovered to subsist between the periodical times of revolution of the planets round the sun, and their distances from that central luminary. Astronomers have most decidedly proved that the square of the time in which any planet revolves is to the square of the time in which any other revolves, as the cube of the distance of the first, is to the cube of the distance of the other; and since all the times are known from observation, if the distance of any one be determined, there is no difficulty at all to find the distances of all the other planets from the sun.

“It has also been matter of great surprise to the unlearned, that astronomers should pretend to tell the magnitudes of the sun and planets. But this is no difficult problem when the distance is known. The apparent diameter is readily found from observation, and on this and the distance depends the true diameter. If the apparent diameters of two objects be equal, the true diameter of the one will be greater as it is more remote; and the apparent diameter of any object will increase as the distance of it from the observer diminishes. From this every one sees, that a knowledge of the distance of the object is an indispensible element for finding its bulk; and, according to the accuracy of the measure of the distance, will be that of the measure of the magnitude, provided the apparent distance be truly taken; and this, in the present improved state of our instruments, presents no obstacle. There can be no doubt but that astronomers are very near the truth in the numbers which they now give us for expressing the distances and magnitudes of the sun and planets.

“The telescope has been of singular use to the astronomer; it has shown him many phenomena of the heavenly bodies, concerning which he would otherwise have been totally ignorant. It is by the assistance of this noble instrument that we have attained to the knowledge of the rotations of the sun and planets, the phases of Venus and Mercury, Saturn’s ring, and many other particulars exceedingly interesting. The telescope has discovered several planets which otherwise would have revolved in their courses unknown and unnoticed by the inhabitants of this globe; it has informed us that several of the planets have moons moving round them, as our moon revolves round the earth; besides, it has presented to our view an innumerable multitude of fixed stars which without this assistance we should never have seen.

“It is no wonder that great efforts have been made to improve this excellent instrument; these efforts have been attended with great success, and what may be further done in this respect we cannot tell; however, there is a limit to the improvements of the telescope, for after it has attained a certain degree of magnifying power, the motes and vapors in the atmosphere would be so magnified as to occupy its whole field of view, and thus render it a useless incumbrance.”

Who can contemplate the power which produced the solar system, at once so magnificent, beautiful, and delightful, without astonishment and admiration? The planets are kept in a regular motion, and retained in an invariable course round the sun, by the power of this luminary’s attraction or gravity. These bodies have a projectile force, being propelled forwards in a right line, which is the nature of all simple motion; but the sun’s attraction combining with their own projectile force, withdraws them from their rectilineal courses, and preserves the most perfect harmony in the system. This wonderful mechanism was originally impressed on the system by its infinitely wise and omnipotent Creator; to which primary impulse it has with undeviating uniformity adhered, having never suffered in its operations from the greatest distance of space, or intervals of time!

Surely no power less than that which at first gave existence and modification to matter, is equal to the government of the world. The solar orb and the planetary bodies could no more subsist in their present form and order, without a Divine, supporting, and directing hand, than they could at the beginning make themselves. What is that general law or force called gravitation, without which the whole frame of nature would soon be dissolved? Is it not a power constantly issuing from the Deity, and which if he should suspend but for one moment, the whole creation would sink into ruins? How inconceivably great and operative must that power be, that is present throughout the universe, with all the heavenly orbs to preserve them in their courses; and on this earth, with every creature, and every particle of matter, to preserve its present form!