Abstract
THIS book is a sheer delight. The multiplication of text-books and popular literature in astronomy, salutary as it is on the whole, has one serious disadvantage: it diverts the attention of inquirers from original sources of knowledge. The reason is obvious. Neither time nor accessibility allows of reference to a separate volume for each piece of information one may require. We need all our store of available knowledge between two covers, and so it comes about that the amateur, nourished on his handbook, and the student, looking only to his text-book, develop into the working astronomer with an almost total ignorance of the original papers of any but contemporary writers.
A Source Book in Astronomy.
By Prof. Harlow Shapley Helen E. Howarth. (Source Books in the History of the Sciences.) Pp. xvi + 412.(New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc.; London: McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., Ltd., 1929.) 20s. net.
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D., H. A Source Book in Astronomy . Nature 124, 218–219 (1929). https://doi.org/10.1038/124218a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/124218a0
