Side-Lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science

by Simon Newcomb

The National Observatory soon became famous by two remarkable steps which raised our country to an important position among those applying modern science to practical uses. One of these consisted of the researches of Sears Cook Walker on the motion of the newly discovered planet Neptune. He was the first astronomer to determine fairly good elements of the orbit of that planet, and, what is yet more remarkable, he was able to trace back the movement of the planet in the heavens for half a century and to show that it had been observed as a fixed star by Lalande in 1795, without the observer having any suspicion of the true character of the object.

The other work to which I refer was the application to astronomy and to the determination of longitudes of the chronographic method of registering transits of stars or other phenomena requiring an exact record of the instant of their occurrence. It is to be regretted that the history of this application has not been fully written. In some points there seems to be as much obscurity as with the discovery of ether as an anaesthetic, which took place about the same time. Happily, no such contest has been fought over the astronomical as over the surgical discovery, the fact being that all who were engaged in the application of the new method were more anxious to perfect it than they were to get credit for themselves. We know that Saxton, of the Coast Survey; Mitchell and Locke, of Cincinnati; Bond, at Cambridge, as well as Walker, and other astronomers at the Naval Observatory, all worked at the apparatus; that Maury seconded their efforts with untiring zeal; that it was used to determine the longitude of Baltimore as early as 1844 by Captain Wilkes, and that it was put into practical use in recording observations at the Naval Observatory as early as 1846.

At the Cambridge Observatory the two Bonds, father and son, speedily began to show the stuff of which the astronomer is made. A well-devised system of observations was put in operation. The discovery of the dark ring of Saturn and of a new satellite to that planet gave additional fame to the establishment.

Nor was activity confined to the observational side of the science. The same decade of which I speak was marked by the beginning of Professor Pierce's mathematical work, especially his determination of the perturbations of Uranus and Neptune. At this time commenced the work of Dr. B. A. Gould, who soon became the leading figure in American astronomy. Immediately on graduating at Harvard in 1845, he determined to devote all the energies of his life to the prosecution of his favorite science. He studied in Europe for three years, took the doctor's degree at Gottingen, came home, founded the Astronomical Journal, and took an active part in that branch of the work of the Coast Survey which included the determination of longitudes by astronomical methods.

An episode which may not belong to the history of astronomy must be acknowledged to have had a powerful influence in exciting public interest in that science. Professor O. M. Mitchell, the founder and first director of the Cincinnati Observatory, made the masses of our intelligent people acquainted with the leading facts of astronomy by courses of lectures which, in lucidity and eloquence, have never been excelled. The immediate object of the lectures was to raise funds for establishing his observatory and fitting it out with a fine telescope. The popular interest thus excited in the science had an important effect in leading the public to support astronomical research. If public support, based on public interest, is what has made the present fabric of American astronomy possible, then should we honor the name of a man whose enthusiasm leavened the masses of his countrymen with interest in our science.

The Civil War naturally exerted a depressing influence upon our scientific activity. The cultivator of knowledge is no less patriotic than his fellow-citizens, and vies with them in devotion to the public welfare. The active interest which such cultivators took, first in the prosecution of the war and then in the restoration of the Union, naturally distracted their attention from their favorite pursuits. But no sooner was political stability reached than a wave of intellectual activity set in, which has gone on increasing up to the present time. If it be true that never before in our history has so much attention been given to education as now; that never before did so many men devote themselves to the diffusion of knowledge, it is no less true that never was astronomical work so energetically pursued among us as at the present time.

One deplorable result of the Civil War was that Gould's Astronomical Journal had to be suspended. Shortly after the restoration of peace, instead of re-establishing the journal, its founder conceived the project of exploring the southern heavens. The northern hemisphere being the seat of civilization, that portion of the sky which could not be seen from our latitudes was comparatively neglected. What had been done in the southern hemisphere was mostly the occasional work of individuals and of one or two permanent observatories. The latter were so few in number and so meagre in their outfit that a splendid field was open to the inquirer. Gould found the patron which he desired in the government of the Argentine Republic, on whose territory he erected what must rank in the future as one of the memorable astronomical establishments of the world. His work affords a most striking example of the principle that the astronomer is more important than his instruments. Not only were the means at the command of the Argentine Observatory slender in the extreme when compared with those of the favored institutions of the North, but, from the very nature of the case, the Argentine Republic could not supply trained astronomers. The difficulties thus growing out of the administration cannot be overestimated. And yet the sixteen great volumes in which the work of the institution has been published will rank in the future among the classics of astronomy.

Another wonderful focus of activity, in which one hardly knows whether he ought most to admire the exhaustless energy or the admirable ingenuity which he finds displayed, is the Harvard Observatory. Its work has been aided by gifts which have no parallel in the liberality that prompted them. Yet without energy and skill such gifts would have been useless. The activity of the establishment includes both hemispheres. Time would fail to tell how it has not only mapped out important regions of the heavens from the north to the south pole, but analyzed the rays of light which come from hundreds of thousands of stars by recording their spectra in permanence on photographic plates.

The work of the establishment is so organized that a new star cannot appear in any part of the heavens nor a known star undergo any noteworthy change without immediate detection by the photographic eye of one or more little telescopes, all-seeing and never-sleeping policemen that scan the heavens unceasingly while the astronomer may sleep, and report in the morning every case of irregularity in the proceedings of the heavenly bodies.

Yet another example, showing what great results may be obtained with limited means, is afforded by the Lick Observatory, on Mount Hamilton, California. During the ten years of its activity its astronomers have made it known the world over by works and discoveries too varied and numerous to be even mentioned at the present time.