came to pass, the savages
were so terrified that they brought him provisions as much as he needed.

3. A.D. 1610, July 6. The eclipse in question is notable as having been
seen through the telescope, then a recent invention. It was without
doubt the first so observed, but unfortunately the name of the observer
has not come down to us.

CHAPTER X

THE GROWTH OF OBSERVATION

The earliest astronomical observations must have been made in the Dawn
of Historic Time by the men who tended their flocks upon the great
plains. As they watched the clear night sky they no doubt soon noticed
that, with the exception of the moon and those brilliant wandering
objects known to us as the planets, the individual stars in the heaven
remained apparently fixed with reference to each other. These seemingly
changeless points of light came in time to be regarded as sign-posts to
guide the wanderer across the trackless desert, or the voyager upon the
wide sea.

Just as when looking into the red coals of a fire, or when watching the
clouds, our imagination conjures up strange and grotesque forms, so did
the men of old see in the grouping of the stars the outlines of weird
and curious shapes. Fed with mythological lore, they imagined these to
be rough representations of ancient heroes and fabled beasts, whom they
supposed to have been elevated to the heavens as a reward for great
deeds done upon the earth. We know these groupings of stars to-day under
the name of the Constellations. Looking up at them we find it extremely
difficult to fit in the majority with the figures which the ancients
believed them to represent. Nevertheless, astronomy has accepted the
arrangement, for want of a better method of fixing the leading stars in
the memory.

Our early ancestors lived the greater part of their lives in the open
air, and so came to pay more attention in general to the heavenly orbs
than we do. Their clock and their calendar was, so to speak, in the
celestial vault. They regulated their hours, their days, and their
nights by the changing positions of the sun, the moon, and the stars;
and recognised the periods of seed-time and harvest, of calm and stormy
weather, by the rising or setting of certain well-known constellations.
Students of the classics will recall many allusions to this, especially
in the Odes of Horace.

As time went on and civilisation progressed, men soon devised measuring
instruments, by means of which they could not