You may wonder how you can make any use of the stars, but there are dozens of ways by which they will serve your purpose, from finding the north to lighting a fire, and from telling the time to sending a signal, and they are all easy to you when you know how. All the apparatus you need so that you can know the stars is a pair of good, sharp eyes, and if you are fitted with these you are ready to begin your work in starcraft this very night. A great many folks believe that they must have a telescope with which to see the stars, and while, of course, a great deal more can be seen with a telescope than without one, still it must be remembered that the telescope was invented not longer than four hundred years ago and that many important discoveries in astronomy were made long before the telescope was invented. And, by the way, it was a boy who invented the telescope. A small telescope, or a pair of field or opera glasses, will show you many things in the sky which you cannot see with the naked eye, and if you have one of these instruments, by all means use it. On the other hand, you can get along very well without a glass of any kind until you have learned the things that are set down in this book. To win a _merit badge_ in the organization of Boy Scouts, a boy must pass certain tests; but it is just as necessary for you to know the stars as it is for a Boy Scout, and this book is so written that anyone who studies it can pass the Boy Scout tests, and there are a few other things in it which everyone should know. Once that you have an insight into starcraft, you will never need to be told again how very interesting and useful the stars are, and once that you have mastered the chief points in this book, you should make or buy a telescope having a two-or three-inch objective and get a little closer to the stars. If any questions should come up which you don’t understand, if you will write to me, I will write to you. A. FREDERICK COLLINS. “THE ANTLERS,” Congers, N. Y. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. HOW TO FIND THE NORTH STAR 1 II. HOW TO KNOW THE STARS 14 III. THE SUN, THE BRIGHTEST OF ALL STARS 29 IV. THE PLANETS, THE SUN’S KIDDIES 46 V. MOTHER EARTH, OLD ADAM’S PLANET 66 VI. THE MOON, THE EARTH’S DAUGHTER 89 VII. OTHER THINGS IN THE SKY 107 VIII. SEEING THE STARS 121 IX. THE SPYGLASS OR TELESCOPE 136 X. THE TIME O’ DAY 151 XI. THE STARS OF THE ZODIAC 166 XII. VALUABLE INFORMATION 185 APPENDICES 193 DEFINITIONS OF SOME WORDS AND TERMS 213 INDEX 221 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS