i78 HISTORY OF PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY. 



Berlin, Dorpat, Munich, Geneva, Paris, Konigsberg, Madras, the Cape 

 of Good Hope. 



Littrow, in his translation, adds to the publications noticed in the 

 text as containing astronomical Observations, Zach's Monailiclie Cor- 

 respondenz, Lindenau and Bohnenberger's Zeitschrift fur Astronomic, 

 Bode's Astronomisches Jahrbuch, Schumacher's Astronomische Nach- 

 richtcn.] 



Nor has the establishment of observatories been confined to Europe. 

 In 1786, M. de Beauchamp, at the expense of Louis the Sixteenth, 

 erected an observatory at Bagdad, " built to restore the Chaldean and 

 Arabian observations," as the inscription stated ; but, probably, the 

 restoration once effected, the main intention had been fulfilled, and 

 little perseverance in observing was thought necessary. In 1828, the 

 British government completed the building of an observatory at the 

 Cape of Good Hope, which Lacaille had already made an astronom- 

 ical station by his observations there at an earlier period (1750) ; and 

 an observatory formed in New South "Wales by Sir T. M. Brisbane in 

 1822, and presented by him to the government, is also in activity. The 

 East India Company has founded observatories at Madras, Bombay, 

 and St. Helena ; and observations made at the former of these places, 

 and at St. Helena, have been published. 



The bearing of the work done at such observatories upon the past 

 progress of astronomy, has already been seen in the preceding narra- 

 tive. Their bearing upon the present condition of the science will be 

 the subject of a few remarks hereafter. 







Sect. 3. Scientific Societies. 



THE influence of Scientific Societies, or Academical Bodies, has also 

 been very powerful in the subject before us. In all branches of knowl- 

 edge, the use of such associations of studious and inquiring men is 

 great ; the clearness and coherence of a speculator's ideas, and their 

 agreement with facts (the two main conditions of scientific truth), are 

 severally but beneficially tested by collision with other minds. In as- 

 tronomy, moreover, the vast extent of the subject makes requisite the 

 division of labor and the support of sympathy. The Royal Societies 

 of London and of Paris were founded nearly at the same time as the 

 metropolitan Observatories of the two countries. We have seen what 

 constellations of philosophers, and what activity of research, existed at 

 those periods ; these philosophers appear in the lists, their discoveries 



