course among the islands of the Mediterranean by the stars; but if they
had any further speculative notions of astronomy, they were probably
derived from the Chaldeans or Egyptians. In China, astronomy has been
known from the remotest ages, and has always been considered as a
science necessary and indispensable to the civil government of the
Celestial Empire. On considering the accounts of Chinese astronomy, we
find it consisted only in the practice of certain observations, which
led to nothing more than the knowledge of a few isolated facts, and they
are indebted to foreigners for any further improvements they have since
adopted.

The Greeks seem to have made the most early advances in astronomy; for
notwithstanding that the art of observation was still in its infancy, we
are indebted to the labours and speculations of ancient Greek
philosophers for raising astronomy to the dignity of a science. The
complicated but ingenious hypotheses of the Greek Ptolemy prepared the
way for the discovery of the elliptic form of the planetary orbits and
other astronomical laws by the German Kepler, which again conducted our
English Newton to the discovery of the law of gravitation. I am not,
however, desirous of giving this meeting a lecture on astronomy--I shall
leave that to Professor Grant. But it is singular that I should have
come here on a day on which one of the now known observations and
movements of the planets has taken place--the transit of Mercury. This
was calculated to occur this day by the science of astronomy, and it is
also known when it will again occur, namely, on the 6th of May 1878. I
will end this subject by saying, that the discoveries in astronomy in
the last and present centuries have been so many and interesting, that
it would be quite impossible for me to enter here minutely upon them.

In conclusion,--What have science and art done for us? They have