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.