LETTERS 121 ON ASTRONOMY, ADDRESSED TO A LADY: IN WHICH THE ELEMENTS OF THE SCIENCE ARE FAMILIARLY EXPLAINED IN CONNEXION WITH ITS LITERARY HISTORY. WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS. BY DENISON OLMSTED, A. M. PROFESSOR OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY AND ASTRONOMY IN YALE COLLEGE; MEM- BOSTON: MARSH, CAPEN, LYON, AND WEBB. 131 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1840, by in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. EDUCATION PRESS. "IF the present age is distinguished by more clear and just views of social and political science, it is not less marked by the disposition, so unequivocally and universally manifested, to reject the inordinate estimate heretofore set upon merely ornamental literature; and whilst it does not refuse their just rank and influence to such studies, it admits to that high consideration to which they are entitled, the sciences which explain the beautiful phenomena of the physical world. "The public now demand of those professionally devoted to the sciences, that they shall not confine the knowledge they have such favored opportunities of acquiring, to the lecture-room, but shall render it, as far as practicable, available to the well-informed of all professions, and to the more intelligent, at least, of the other sex."-Edinburgh Review for April, 1835. |