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This is the name given to the science of the stars. It comes from a Greek word astron, which means star. Can you not think of a certain bright-faced, star-like flower whose name, now that you come to think of it, must have come from this same Greek word, astron?
You see then that somebody, long, long ago even, must have thought of the likeness between the stars and the flowers; so have we not as good a right to call the stars sky-flowers, as they had, so long ago, to call the flowers earth-stars?
You have no idea of the wonderful discoveries that have been made about these far-off dots of light.
By long years of hard study, astronomers have learned how far away these stars are from us, how far they are from each other, how large they are, how old they are, how much they weigh, what they have been doing,—yes, and even what they are going to do in the ages to come.
It was strange enougn to know what botanists had learned about the families, the ways, the lives and the deaths of all the plants of the great plant world; but to think of learning all about the star-world, away up there in the sky beyond reach, beyond hearing, and almost beyond sight, seems almost incredible. It is enough to take away one's breath, isn't it? But are n't we glad we haven't all this searching to do for ourselves? Isn't it good to be alive in these days of books and study, when people have already learned so much and are so eager to learn more?
Astronomy is such an old science! That is, people have been studying it, in one way or another, for so many, many years.
The Chinese, it is said, have books four thousand years old, in which are written reports of eclipses; and in one of these books, is told a story of a certain ruler in that country who was so angry with two astronomers, Hi and Ho, for not foretelling an eclipse of the sun that he had them put to death.
The Chaldeaus, too, knew something about the sky. Lying out on the hillsides through the long nights as these Chaldean shepherds did, they could not fail to notice some of the wonderful changes among the stars. They learned to know and recognize the stars as they did their sheep.
They learned that certain stars seemed traveling on, night after night, towards the setting sun; and that by and by they, too, seemed to "set," as we say the sun "sets;" they learned that after a few weeks, or months, these stars came back again, traveled across the sky, and again were lost to sight.
They noticed that the moon came just so often, stayed just so long, then, like the stars, went down and out of sight.
Wonderful stories these shepherds used to tell of the star-world,—some of them wise, some of them so foolish you would wonder that any one could believe them.