The starry skies : $b or, First lessons on the sun, moon and stars
Free
About
"The starry skies" by Agnes Giberne is a children's astronomy primer written in the late 19th century. Aimed at beginners, it explains the Earth, Moon, Sun, and stars through clear analogies, simple experiments, and short Q&A sections, emphasizing basic ideas like the Earth’s shape, gravity, day and night, lunar phases, and the Sun’s nature.
The opening of the book moves from first principles to sky-watching essentials. It starts by proving the Earth is a sphere using travel-and-spider analogies, the horizon, poles, equator, and hemispheres, then explains gravity (attraction) as the reason people don’t “fall off” on the far side of the globe and frames Earth as a bright world in space. It describes the Sun’s apparent daily path, equinoxes and solstices, the zenith, and the stars’ east‑to‑west drift, before showing that these motions are illusions caused by Earth’s rotation on its axis. Next it introduces the Moon’s size and distance with scale models (Earth a 4‑inch ball, Moon 1‑inch,
Source and licence
This work is public domain or openly licensed. The licence terms are published by the source.
How do I open it?
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