Astronomical Myths Based on Flammarion's History of the Heavens (Hardcover)

1877. This book is founded upon a French work by M. Flammarion which enjoyed considerable popularity. It contained a number of interesting accounts of the various ideas, sometimes mythical, sometimes intended to be serious, that had been entertained concerning the heavenly bodies and our own earth; with a popular history of the earliest commencement of astronomy among several ancient people. In the early days, astronomy was so mixed up with all the affairs of life, and contributed so much even to religion, that a history of its beginnings is found to reveal the origin of several of our ideas and habits, now quite unconnected with the science. Illustrated.