ELEMENTS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. PART IV. ASTRONOMY. TH HE nature of the luminous objects that are seen in the heaves and of which the moon is the nearest to us; their number, their dif tances, their movements, with the appearances which arise therefrom, and the useful purposes to which the human fpecies has applied the knowledge of those particulars, form the science of aftronomy. To the vulgar eye the heavenly bodies offer an unprofitable, confused, but pleasing, spectacle. The leaft obfervation fhews that the feafons, the lengths of days and nights, the viciffitudes of heat and cold, &c. are connected with particular fituations of the celeftial bodies. Farther obfervations point out the entire dependance of the former upon the latter, as VOL. IV. alfa |