The Story of the Universe. Volume 1 (of 4)

Part 1

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Italic text is denoted by underscores.

Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been placed at the end of each chapter.

A superscript is denoted by ^x, for example Pi^2 or 3^h.

A subscript is denoted by {x}, for example L{2}.

Basic fractions are displayed as ½ ⅓ ¼ etc; other fractions are shown in the form a/b, for example 1/200 or 95/729. A few fractions were of the form a-b in the original book; these have been changed to a/b for consistency.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.

THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE

Told by Great Scientists and Popular Authors

COLLECTED AND EDITED By ESTHER SINGLETON

Author of “Turrets, Towers and Temples,” “Wonders of Nature,” “The World’s Great Events,” “Famous Paintings,” Translator of Lavignac’s “Music Dramas of Richard Wagner”

FULLY ILLUSTRATED

VOLUME I

THE STARRY SKIES

P. F. COLLIER AND SON NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT 1905 BY P. F. COLLIER & SON

PREFACE

In the following pages I have endeavored to present a comprehensive and general view of the material side of the universe. Instead of trying myself to tell the story of the universe, I have gone to the works of acknowledged weight and authority in this line of research and selected from them extracts of a popular character, especially those that are entertaining as well as merely instructive. The average reader is frequently repelled from the study of the sciences by the dry treatment adopted by those who try to instruct him. He cares little for laws, theories, or affinities; and he can not help being bored by attempts to make him understand classifications with their long lists of words manufactured from the names of modern celebrities or non-entities and roots from dead languages. I have therefore kept constantly in mind the person who seeks entertaining knowledge, and not the scientific specialist. I have tried to avoid all technicalities wherever possible.

Of late years, in fact ever since the foundation of the British Association, there has been a constantly increasing interest in the wonders of nature; and the specialist has responded to this popular interest in his scientific labors by speaking in language that an intelligent child can comprehend. People as a rule prefer to read of the habits, instincts, intelligence, and movements of animals and plants, rather than of their organs and structure. Thus the study of Natural History has received a great impetus from the writings of such men as Darwin and Lubbock; and Astronomy has been rendered more attractive to the lay reader by Flammarion, Gore, Proctor, and Ball. Every traveler who returns from remote or hitherto unknown Arctic or Torrid Zones has something fresh to tell us of the phenomena and life of our universe, which adds fresh stimulus to the popular interest in the Natural Sciences.

The Story of the Universe naturally falls under the following four heads:

First, the bodies moving in infinite space, including stars, dark and lucid, planets, nebulæ, comets, and meteors.

Second, the Earth, considered as a separate world and the only one of which we have precise detailed knowledge. In this chapter we learn of the past of our globe from the evidence afforded by the rocks of which its crust is composed. The varying conformations of its present surface are described, as is its atmospheric envelope and attendant phenomena. The ocean and its movements and depths are likewise fully considered.

Third, the Earth’s Garment—its flora. In this chapter we are told of the wonders and beauties of plant-life, its development and distribution.

Fourth, the Earth’s Creatures. Here we have a general view of animal life, from the mighty mammoth to the fairy fly: even the beings visible only to the microscope are not forgotten. Special attention is also paid to man, from his origin to the present day.

I have made the selections from authentic editions of the writings of the scientists; and have taken no liberties with the text, with the exception of occasional cutting.

In the Introduction I have given a short sketch of the development of the Natural Sciences, from the dawn of written history to the present day.

E. S.

NEW YORK, March, 1905.

Part 2

INTRODUCTION

The knowledge of the Natural Sciences among the Greeks and Romans was derived principally from the Egyptians and Babylonians. The Phœnicians in their voyages, also, necessarily paid considerable attention to Astronomy. Their Cynosura consisted of the tail of the Little Bear, by which they steered. The great names in Greek Astronomy are Aratus, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy.

From the fancies of Astrology, in which the early Arabs largely indulged, and which, though discountenanced by Mahomet himself, have never been wholly abandoned by their descendants, a not unnatural transition, led to the study of Astronomy. Under the patronage of the Abbaside Caliph Al-Mamun (813-833 A. D.) this science made rapid progress.

Astronomy was zealously studied in the famous schools of Bagdad and Cordova.

The Almagest, or System of Astronomy, by Ptolemy, was translated into Arabic by Alhazi and Sergius as early as 812. In the Tenth Century, Albaten observed the advance of the line of the apsides in the earth’s orbit; Mohammed-ben-Jeber-al-Batani, the obliquity of the ecliptic; Alpetragius wrote a theory of the planets; and Abul-Hassan-Ali, on astronomical instruments. The obliquity of the ecliptic, the diameter of the earth, and even the precession of the equinoxes, were then calculated with commendable accuracy; and shortly after, Abul-Mezar’s Introduction to Astronomy and his Treatise on the Conjunction of the Planets, with the Elements of Al-Furjanee (though this last author was largely indebted to the Egyptian labors of Ptolemy), proved that the caliph’s liberality had been well bestowed. But Al-Batinee, a native of Syria (879-920 A. D.), surpassed all his predecessors in the nicety alike of his observations and computations. Geber, at Seville, constructed (1196 A. D.) the first astronomical observatory on record; and Ebn-Korrah in Egypt proved by his example that the Arabs could be even better astronomers than the Greeks.

Ulug Bekh, grandson of the great Tamerlane, was a diligent observer. He established an academy of astronomers at Samarcand, the capital of his dominions, and constructed magnificent instruments. Ulug Bekh, too, made a catalogue of the fixed stars—the only one that had been compiled since that of Hipparchus, sixteen centuries previously.

Gradually, by their intercourse with civilized nations, the Arabian conquerors were themselves subjected to the humanizing influence of letters, and, after 749 A. D., or during the reign of the Abassides, literature, arts, and sciences appeared, and were generously fostered under the splendid sway, first of Almansor (754-775), and afterward of the celebrated Harun-al-Raschid (786-808). Learned men were now invited from many countries and remunerated for their labors with princely munificence; the works of the best Greek, Syriac, and old Persian writers were translated into Arabic, and spread abroad in numerous copies. The Caliph Al-Mamun, who reigned from 813 to 833, offered to the Greek emperor five tons of gold and a perpetual treaty of peace on condition that the philosopher Leo should be allowed to give instruction to the former. Under the same Caliph the famous schools of Bagdad, Basra, Bokhara, and Kufa were founded, and large libraries were collected in Alexandria, Cairo, and Bagdad. The school of Cordova in Spain soon rivaled that of Bagdad, and in the Tenth Century the Arabs were everywhere the preservers and distributers of knowledge.

Pupils from France and other European countries repaired to Spain in great numbers, to study mathematics and medicine under the Arabs. There were fourteen academies, with many preparatory and upper schools, in Spain, and five very considerable public libraries; that of the Caliph Hakem containing, as is said, more than 600,000 volumes.

In Geography, History, Philosophy, Medicine, Physics, and Mathematics the Arabians rendered important services to science; and the Arabic words still employed in science—such as algebra, alcohol, azimuth, zenith, nadir, with many names of stars, etc. (see The Arabian Heavens, pages 106-120 of Vol. I)—remain as indications of their influence on the early intellectual culture of Europe. But Geography owes most to them during the Middle Ages. In Africa and Asia, the boundaries of geographical science were extended, and the old Arab treatises on geography and works of travels in several countries by Abulfeda, Edrisi, Leo Africanus, Ibn Batuta, Ibn Foslan, Ibn Jobair, Albiruni the astronomer, and others, are still interesting.

The structure of the earth received little attention from the ancients; the extent of its surface known was limited, and the changes upon it were neither so speedy nor violent as to excite special attention. The only opinions deserving to be noticed are those of Pythagoras and Strabo, both of whom observed the phenomena which were then altering the surface of the earth, and proposed theories for explaining the changes that had taken place in geological time. The first held that, in addition to volcanic action, the change in the level of sea and land was owing to the retiring of the sea; while the other maintained that the land changed its level, and not the sea, and that such changes happened more easily to the land below the sea because of its humidity.

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