Chapter II: Preface

It was the intention of the late Agnes Clerke to write the preface to this 'Children's Book of Stars.' Miss Clerke took a warm and sympathetic interest in the authoress and her work, but her lamented death occurred before this kindly intention could be fulfilled.

I cannot pretend to write adequately as her substitute, but I could not resist the appeal made to me by the author, in the name and for the sake of her dear friend and mine, to write a few words of introduction.

I am in no way responsible either for the plan or for any portion of this work, but I can commend it as a book, written in a simple and pleasant style, calculated to awaken the interest of intelligent children, and to enable parents otherwise ignorant or astronomy to answer many of those puzzling questions which such children often put.

DAVID GILL.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This little work is the outcome of many suggestions on the part of friends who were anxious to teach their small children something of the marvels of the heavens, but found it exceedingly difficult to get hold of a book wherein the intense fascination of the subject was not lost in conventional phraseology--a book in which the stupendous facts were stated in language simple enough to be read aloud to a child without paraphrase.

Whatever merit there may be in the present work is due entirely to my friend Agnes Clerke, the well-known writer on astronomy; the faults are all my own. She gave me the impetus to begin by her warm encouragement, and she helped me to continue by hearing every chapter read as it was written, and by discussing its successor and making suggestions for it. Thus she heard the whole book in MS. A week after the last chapter had been read to her I started on a journey lasting many months, and while I was in the Far East the news reached me of her death, by which the world is the poorer. For her sake, as he has stated, her friend Sir David Gill, K.C.B., kindly undertook to supply the missing preface.

G. E. MITTON.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I PAGE

THE EARTH 1

CHAPTER II

HANGING IN SPACE 13

CHAPTER III

THE SHINING MOON 21

CHAPTER IV

THE EARTH'S BROTHERS AND SISTER 32

CHAPTER V

FOUR SMALL WORLDS 48

CHAPTER VI

FOUR LARGE WORLDS 67

CHAPTER VII

THE SUN 89

CHAPTER VIII

SHINING VISITORS 103

CHAPTER IX

SHOOTING STARS AND FIERY BALLS 120

CHAPTER X

THE GLITTERING HEAVENS 135

CHAPTER XI

THE CONSTELLATIONS 148

CHAPTER XII

WHAT THE STARS ARE MADE OF 159

CHAPTER XIII

RESTLESS STARS 170

CHAPTER XIV

THE COLOURS OF THE STARS 176

CHAPTER XV

TEMPORARY AND VARIABLE STARS 188