Sentinel Pass, Banff

Science Saturday

Today we are highlighting an early 18th century book titled Astronomical Dialogues Between a Gentleman and a Lady: Wherein the Doctrine of the Sphere, uses of the Globes, and the Elements of Astronomy and Geography are Explain’d in a Pleasant, Easy and Familiar way: with a Description of the Famous Instrument called the Orrery by John Harris. Printed in London by T. Wood for Benj. Cowse, at the Rose and Cross in St. Paul’s Church-yard in 1719.

As the long title suggests the book is a back and forth conversation between a man and woman about various principles of astronomy. The author John Harris notes in the preface that it is an imitation of Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds by French author Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, published in 1686. Harris also wrote about how it was the great pursuit of his life to engage persons of “birth and fortune” to spend their leisure time to “useful and real learning,” and to “detach some of their happy leisure from being lost by sports, play, or worse avocations, and dedicate it to the improvement of their minds.” Astronomical Dialogues Between a Gentleman and a Lady uses Fontenelle’s work as a jumping off point, where the woman says that she read Plurality of Worlds and did not understand some of the concepts and asks the gentleman to explain.

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Photographed by Freddie Ardley