A gathering of essays from various scientific journals by the noted British astronomer, Richard A. Proctor (1837-88). Proctor was the author of more than 40 books on the subject and is credited with popularizing astronomy in the 19th century. He was the first to suggest that lunar craters were the result of meteor impacts and not volcanic activity and won recogition for his 1867 map of the surface of Mars showing continents, seas, bays and straits. This book contains essays on subjects including: Sir John Herschel; the planet Mars; Saturn's rings; meteors and shooting stars; the zodiacal light; the solar corona; the sun's journey through space; distribution of the nebulae; a new theory of the Milky Way; the diurnal rotation of Mars; the proper motion of the Sun; the transit of Venus in 1874 and many other subjects. The illustrations include a handsome frontis lithograph of Saturn and its rings and there is also a folding plan of the orbits of Earth and Mars and 5 folding charts showing various stages of the transit of Venus in 1874. There are 3 full-page polar and equatorial maps on black paper showing distribution of Nebulae.