Digital reprint. Originally published: London : Macmillan and Co., 1893.

Includes index.

Herschel and the motion of the fixed stars -- The discovery of the asteroids -- Bessel--the distances of thpt. I. Copernicus and the motion of the Copernicus and the motion of the earth -- Tycho Brahé and the earliest observatory -- Kepler and the laws of planetary motion -- Galileo and the invention of the telescope -- Galileo and the Inquisition -- Descartes and his theory of vortices -- Sir Isaac Newton -- Newton and the law of gravitation -- Newton's "Principia" -- Roemer and Bradley and the velocity of light -- Lagrange and Laplace : the stability of the solar system and the nebular hypothesis -- Herschel and the motion of the fixed stars -- The discovery of the asteroids -- Bessel : the distances of the stars and the discovery of stellar planets -- The discovery of Neptune -- Comets and meteors -- The tides -- The tides and planetary evolution.

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