The Cause of the Supposed Proper Motion of the Fixed Stars, and an Explanation of the Apparent Acceleration of the Moon's Mean Motion; with other Geometrical Problems in Astronomy hitherto Unsolved.

Abstract

THIS book, the author tells us, is a sequel to “The Cause, Date, and Duration of the Last Glacial Epoch,” of which we published a short notice last year. The last work was founded on misconception and ignorance, and in this respect the one may fairly be called a sequel to the other. In our remarks on “The Glacial Epoch ” we objected to the author's attempt to solve a problem in physical astronomy by geometry alone. The author, however, is unconvinced. His geometry, it is true, is a much more powerful instrument than anything of the same name which we have had the fortune to meet with so far. On p. 4 of the present work he thus compares the powers of observation and geometry:— “Mere observation can never arrive at any result until the whole cycle, and perhaps many cycles, have been observed. For example, if the sun's mid-day altitude were observed on the 1st of January of any year, and again on the 1st of February and 1st of March, observation alone could tell us nothing more than that there was a certain increase in this meridian altitude. Geometry, however, could analyse this rate of increase, and would probably be able to predict what would be the sun's meridian altitude for every day in the year” Perhaps the author could, by his geometry, if he knew the height of the reviewer at the ages of ten, twelve, and fourteen, predict his height at the age of fifty or sixty. The geometry which could solve the one problem woqld surely be able to solve the other.

The Cause of the Supposed Proper Motion of the Fixed Stars, and an Explanation of the Apparent Acceleration of the Moon's Mean Motion; with other Geometrical Problems in Astronomy hitherto Unsolved.

A Sequel to the Glacial Epoch. By Lieut.-Col. DraysonR.A. . (London: Chapman and Hall, 1874.)