ASTRONOMY.COM 55added two pages containing 80
drawings of double stars, com-
ets, clusters, and nebulae to the
Atlas. Mattison produced nine
editions, the last one in 1876.
Gone too soon
Burritt died January 3, 1838,
in Galveston, Texas. Late in
the previous year, he had orga-
nized and led a group of 30
colonists, which included one
of his sisters and a brother, to
Houston, Texas, to settle there.
In 1836, Texas seceded from
Mexico and became an inde-
pendent republic. It wouldn’t
become part of the U.S. until
- Burritt was drawn to
Texas because the government
had passed laws that granted
colonists generous plots of
land.
Burritt’s group chartered a
ship and, after a 28-day voy-
age, landed at Galveston —
well, sort of. A storm caused
the ship to wreck on a sandbar,
which delayed the actual land-
ing by several days. The jour-
ney to Houston took just a few
more days, but once they
arrived, the party had to live
in tents because nobody was
expecting them. Within a
week, yellow fever broke out
and wiped out nearly the entire
group, including Burritt, who
died in Houston just a few
weeks later.
Testimonials
I have owned a copy of the
original 1833 edition of The
Geography of the Heavens for
many years, as well as a set
of Burritt’s 1835 constellation
maps, which I had framed
in the 1980s. When I began
collecting 19th-century first-
edition astronomy books, this
set was one of the top 10 items
I set out to acquire. But I wasn’t
the only one who thought
highly of Burritt’s work.
The famous double-star
discoverer Sherburne Wesley
Burnham became interested in
the stars after purchasing a
copy of Burritt’s Geography
at an auction in 1862 in New
Orleans, where Burnham was
a shorthand reporter in Maj.
Gen. Benjamin Butler’s Union
Army headquarters. After
studying the constellations
shown in the Atlas, Burnham
began to identify them in the
sky. He held positions at sev-
eral observatories and finished
his career as an astronomer at
Ye r k e s O b s e r v a t o r y.
Praise also came from out-
side the field of astronomy.
In a letter dated January 1,
1915, to Maurice Winter Moe,
American horror author H.P.
Lovecraft cited his admiration
for Burritt’s work, a copy ofwhich he inherited from his
grandmother: “Her copy of
Burritt’s Geography of the
Heavens is today the most
prized volume in my library.”
For the simplicity of the
text, the beauty of the illustra-
tions, and the sheer number
of sales, The Geography of the
Heavens is rightly hailed as a
terrific teaching tool. Likewise,
Elijah Hinsdale Burritt
deserves his place as one of
the great popularizers in the
history of astronomy.Michael E. Bakich is a
contributing editor of Astronomy
whose library once contained
475 first-edition 19th-century
astronomy books.The final map (Map VII)
in the Atlas displays the
stars and constellations
around the South
Celestial Pole. Several
defunct constellations
are visible, including
Robur Caroli and
Solarium.