The Children's Book of Stars

by G. E. Mitton

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.

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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]
	CHAPTER XVI
	STAR CLUSTERS AND NEBULÆ	[197]

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ILLUSTRATIONS