The work of Johannes Hevelius--Halley and Hevelius--Halley's
observation of the transit of Mercury, and his method
of determining the parallax of the planets--Halley's observation
of meteors--His inability to explain these bodies--The important
work of James Bradley--Lacaille's measurement of the arc of the
meridian--The determination of the question as to the exact shape
of the earth--D'Alembert and his influence upon science-
-Delambre's History of Astronomy--The astronomical work of Euler.

CHAPTER II. THE PROGRESS OF MODERN ASTRONOMY

The work of William Herschel--His discovery of Uranus--His
discovery that the stars are suns--His conception
of the universe--His deduction that gravitation has caused
the grouping of the heavenly bodies--The nebula, hypothesis,
--Immanuel Kant's conception of the formation of the
world--Defects in Kant's conception--Laplace's final solution of
the problem--His explanation in detail--Change in the mental
attitude of the world since Bruno--Asteroids and
satellites--Discoveries of Olbers1--The mathematical calculations
of Adams and Leverrier--The discovery of the inner ring of
Saturn--Clerk Maxwell's paper on the stability of Saturn's
rings--Helmholtz's conception of the action of tidal
friction--Professor G. H. Darwin's estimate of the consequences
of tidal action--Comets and meteors--Bredichin's cometary
theory--The final solution of the structure of comets--Newcomb's
estimate of the amount of cometary dust swept up daily by
the earth--The fixed stars--John Herschel's studies
of double stars--Fraunhofer's perfection of the refracting
telescope--Bessel's measurement of the parallax of a