54 ASTRONOMY • MAY 2020Georgia, he married Ann
Williams Watson, with whom
he had five children.
Upon returning to
Connecticut, he converted some
property he owned, called the
Stone Store, into a school. As
part of the conversion, Burritt
installed an observatory,
featuring a telescope he had
purchased, on the top f loor.Geography
Once back in Connecticut,
Burritt began writing The
Geography of the Heavens. He
had one major book under his
belt already, having authored
Logarithmick Arithmetick in- The first half of this work
was a textbook on arithmetic.
He followed it with a section
on astronomy, and devoted the
final 40 pages to a table of loga-
rithms from 1 to 10,000, each
calculated to seven decimal
places. Burritt also included a
method for students to calculate
the logarithms of numbers up
to 10 million.
In 1821, Burritt wrote a
28-page pamphlet: Astronomia,
or directions for the ready find-
ing of all the principal stars in
the heavens which are named on
Carey’s Celestial Globe. He fol-
lowed this work in 1830 with
another pamphlet that showed
how to compute interest, both
simple and compound.
The book that made Burritt
famous, however, was TheGeography of the Heavens. He
wanted to call it Uranography,
but his publisher (probably
wisely) insisted on Geography.
Apparently buying into this
notion, Burritt writes in the
preface that he wants the book
to be to the heavens what geog-
raphy is to Earth.
Burritt devotes the main part
of the book to the constellations.
He describes each star figure,
recounts its mythology and his-
tory, and lists the brightest stars
it contains, giving their magni-
tudes and other facts.
The next section deals with
the solar system, followed by a
number of problems for readers
(mainly students) to solve, and
then an appendix with 13 astro-
nomical tables.
The Atlas contains seven
maps. Four of them show con-
stellations in the equatorial
regions by season, two illustrate
the star figures in the polar
regions, and one is an all-sky
chart that shows the Sun’s posi-
tion on the ecliptic throughout
the year. Burritt drew all the
maps and supervised their
engravings. But although he
drew them, he didn’t create
them — he copied all the con-
stellation figures from English
astronomer Francis Wollaston’s
A portraiture of the heavens, as
they appear to the naked eye:
constructed for the use of stu-
dents in astronomy, which
appeared in 1811. Later editions
of the Atlas included an addi-
tional spread showing the rela-
tive sizes and distances of the
Sun, Moon, and planets, along
with many other solar system
facts.
Burritt also added material
to the second (1835) and third
(1836) editions of the textbook,
but he died before further edi-
tions were printed. The next
four editions (1841, 184 4, 1846,
and 1849) were reissues of the
third edition. In 1852, American
astronomer Hiram Mattison
revised the Geography, andMap VI in the Atlas
displays the stars and
constellations around
the North Celestial
Pole. Note the presence
of the defunct
constellation Quadrans
Muralis (“Mural
Quadrant” on the
map). In its boundaries
was the radiant of the
Quadrantid meteor
shower (thus the
name). That point
now lies in Boötes.
Another now-defunct
constellation is also
present: Gloria
Frederica.