Abstract
FIFTY years ago it was the fashion to insert a glossary or dictionary of astronomical terms in every work on astronomy, but few of the books published in late years include these helpful explanations. Mr. Gore endeavours to supply the need in the volume before us. And if the science of astronomy had made no advances during the last half-century, we should have been able to give the highest commendation to his compilation. But since celestial science has had its limits considerably extended, and the old astronomy is giving place to the new, we naturally expect to find the new terms defined in a glossary which pretends to contain “an explanation of all the terms and names generally used in books on astronomy.” We were greatly surprised therefore, upon looking through the book, to notice the omission of many common and important words to be found in almost every work on astronomy. Among other omissions are the words corona, prominences, chromosphere, photosphere, spectroscope, and prism. Zones are correctly described, and are exemplified by “torrid zone,” “frigid zone,” and “temperate zone,” but the term “sun-spot zone” is unexplained. No mention is made of spectroscopic binaries, or of motion in the line of sight, or of zodiacal constellations. Stereograms are defined, but not spectrograms—that useful word coined for spectroscopic negatives. Neither meridian instrument, nor meridian circle are indexed. In fact, so many words constantly employed in astronomy at the present time are omitted, that we have come to the conclusion that Mr. Gore has only attempted to include in his glossary words used when he was a schoolboy. The tables of data merely refer to members of the solar system, and their value would be increased if the solar parallax were given which formed the basis of their computation. Lists of remarkable red stars, variable stars, and stars for which orbits have been computed, conclude the book—a book that might have been very handy to latter-day astronomers, but which in its present form is of no use whatever.
An Astronomical Glossary.
By J. E. Gore. (London: Crosby Lockwood and Son, 1893.)
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Our Book Shelf. Nature 49, 51 (1893). https://doi.org/10.1038/049051a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/049051a0
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