“As, shaking terrors from his blazing hair,
A sanguine Comet gleams through dusky air,
To ruin states, and dire diseases spread,
And baleful light on purpled tyrants shed.”
Further, the progress of genuine astronomy has almost wholly
dissipated, in our day, the gross delusions of astrology, with the
mischievous portents of its infatuated judicial interpreters; follies
engendered by ignorance, which is, ever, the prolific parent of
prejudice, of superstition, and of their numerous concomitant evils.
Footnote 27:
Mr. Rittenhouse observes, (in his Oration delivered before the
American Philosophical Society, in 1775,) that “Galileo not only
discovered these moons of Jupiter, but suggested their use in
determining the longitude of places on the earth; which has since been
so happily put in practice, that Fontenelle does not hesitate to
affirm, they are of more use to geography and navigation, than our own
moon.”—This great man, one of the first restorers of the true
principles of physics, was condemned by, and suffered the penalties of
the Inquisition, in 1535, for defending the system of Copernicus! He
died in 1542.
A letter from Andrew Ellicott, Esq. to Mr. Robert Patterson, dated the
2d of April 1795, and published in the fourth volume of the American
Philosophical Society’s Transactions, contains sundry observations of
the immersions of the satellites of Jupiter, made at Wilmington in the
state of Delaware, by Messrs. Rittenhouse, J. Page, Lukens and
Andrews, respectively, on divers days from the 1st to the 23d of
August (both included,) in the year 1784; together with those observed
at the Western Observatory, by Messrs. Ellicott, Ewing, Madison, &c.
on divers days from the 17th of July to the 19th of August (both
included,) in the same year: also, of the emersions of those
satellites, by the same Eastern Observers, from the 29th of August to
the 19th of September (both included,) and by the same Western
Observers, from the 27th of August, up to the 19th of September, both
included; all in the year 1784. These observations were made,
“Le Trident de Neptune est le Sceptre du Mond.”[27a]
when those able geometricians and astronomers were employed in
ascertaining the Western Boundary of Pennsylvania, by determining the
length of five degrees of longitude, West, from a given point on the
river Delaware.
Footnote 27a:
“The trident of Neptune is the sceptre of the world.”—This, as Lalande
observes, is nearly what Themistocles said at Athens, Pompey at Rome,
Cromwell in England, and Richelieu and Colbert in France.
-----
“It is to astronomy,” says Mr. Lalande, “that we are indebted for the
first voyages of the Phœnicians, and the earliest progress of industry
and commerce: it is likewise to it, that we owe the discovery of the New
World. If there remain any thing to desire for the perfection and
security of navigation, it is, to find the longitude at sea.” In
continuation, he says:—
“The utility of navigation for the welfare of a state, serves to prove
that of astronomy. But it seems to me, that it is difficult for a good
citizen to be ignorant, now, of the usefulness of navigation; above all,
(says Lalande, feelingly,) in France. The success of the English, in the
war of 1764, has but too well shewn, that a marine alone governs the
fortune of empires, their power, their commerce; that peace and war are
decided on the ocean; and that, in fine, as Mr. Miere has expressed it,—
“Ancient chronology deduces, from a knowledge and calculation of
eclipses, the best established periods in time, that it is possible to
obtain: and in ages anterior to regular observations, nothing but
obscurity is to be met with. We should not have in the history of
nations any uncertainty in dates, if there had always been astronomers.
We may perceive, above all, the connexions of astronomy in _The Art of
verifying Dates_. It is by an eclipse of the Moon,[28] that we discover
the error of date that exists in the vulgar era with respect to the
birth of Christ. It is known that Herod was king of Judea, and that
there was an eclipse of the moon immediately before the death of that
prince: we find this eclipse was in the night, between the 12th and 13th
of March, of the fourth year before the vulgar era; so that this era
ought to be removed three years back, at least.
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Footnote 28:
Mr. Derham, speaking of the utility resulting from the observation of
these phænomena, (in his _Astro-Theology_,) says—“As to the eclipses,
whether of sun or moon, they have their excellent uses. The astronomer
applies them to considerable services, in his way, and the geographer
makes them no less useful in his: the chronologer is enabled, by them,
to amend his accounts of time, even of the most ancient days; and so
down through all ages: and the mariner, too, can make them serviceable
to his purpose, to discover his longitude, to correct his account at
sea, and thereby make himself more secure and safe in the untrodden
paths of the deep.”