"The object of the following conversations is to tide the young scholar over the difficulties that beset his path in the pursuit of science. Many of these difficulties are imaginary; but they are not the less difficulties on that account. Easier to harpoon the whale that supplies the student with his midnight oil, than to grapple with the ghost that troubled Brutus; but progress works wonders."

This fanciful trip through the galaxy contains stories inspired by the signs of the zodiac.

"The heavens afford the most sublime subject of study which can be derived from science: the magnitude and splendour of the objects, the inconceivable rapidity with which they move, and the enormous distances between them, impress the mind with some notion of the energy that maintains them in their motions with a durability to which we can see no limits."