LITERARY NOTICES. 



"7 



friends the burden of your lifelong help- 

 lessness ?' 



" I urge the separate higher education 

 of females solely upou physical grounds. 

 My experience has forced me to this. I 

 have a record of my former pupils who 

 stood high in their classes, who did their 

 work with seeming ease, but who have been 

 unable to teach, and now confess that they 

 date the beginning of their present suffer- 

 ings to the continuous labor of school. I 

 have in my mind, as I write, the case of 

 a young lady from Tioga County, now re- 

 siding in this city, who stood foremost in 

 her class, and without apparent effort, but 

 who has never been in sound health since 

 her graduation ; and she attributes her 

 present condition to the insensible ex- 

 haustion of her class-work. Yet she would 

 have been the very last to confess over- 

 work while a pupil ; and I do not think that 

 either she, or her teachers, then suspected 

 it." 



L'Astronomie Pratique et les Observa- 

 toires en Europe et en Amerique de- 

 puis le Milieu du XVI1 b Siecle jusqu'a 

 nos Jours. Par C. Andre et G. Rayet, 

 Astronomes Adjoints de l'Observatoire 

 de Paris. Premiere partie. Angleterre. 

 Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1874. 



(Practical Astronomy and the Observatories 

 of Europe and America, from the Mid- 

 dle of the Seventeenth Century until the 

 Present Time. By Andre and Rayet, 

 Assistant Astronomers in the Paris Ob- 

 servatory. Part I. England.) 



This is the first of a series of three vol- 

 umes to be published for the joint authors, 

 who are both skillful and able astronomers, 

 known in the scientific world by various 

 important researches. This volume treats 

 of the observatories of England alone, and 

 it is to be followed by two others treating 

 of those of Scotland, Ireland, the Continent, 

 and America. 



The design of the work is most excellent, 

 and its execution is thoroughly good, as in- 

 deed might have been anticipated. In brief, 

 the plan of the authors has been to give a 

 short history of each of the many institu- 

 tions devoted to practical astronomy, with 

 a sketch of the life and works of each of 

 the directors who has been in charge of it, 

 as well as an account of the principal instru- 



ments and the uses to which they have been 

 devoted. 



Quite a number of very good woodcuts 

 are supplied, which give perspective views 

 of some of the most important instruments, 

 and these alone lend great value to the book. 

 Many of these cuts are derived from en- 

 gravings given in the publications of the 

 various observatories, and they are there- 

 fore accessible to all who can consult any 

 of the great libraries ; but the collection of 

 these into one volume is a great convenience. 



Quite a number of the cuts, however, 

 must have been copied from photographs 

 privately distributed, which, of course, are 

 not generally accessible, nor widely known, 

 and for the reproduction of these we cannot 

 be too grateful. We may instance the ex- 

 tremely interesting cut of Mr. NewalFs great 

 telescope of 25 inches aperture (made by 

 Cooke, of York), which was the largest re- 

 fractor in the world until the mounting of 

 the Clark telescope at the United States 

 Naval Observatory at Washington, in 1873. 



A propos of large telescopes, the authors 

 tell us that the two large disks of glass (30 

 inches in diameter) which have been in the 

 possession of the Paris Observatory since 

 1855, are shortly to be ground into lenses 

 and mounted, so that, provided the oper- 

 ation of grinding is successful, and no un- 

 known flaws in the glass exist, Paris will 

 soon have a larger equatorial than any now 

 mounted. 



Americans, however, may console them- 

 selves with the thought that the magnificent 

 gift of Mr. Lick, of San Francisco ($700,000), 

 will soon become available " to construct a 

 more powerful telescope than any now in 

 the world," and they may safely trust to the 

 artistic skill and to the scientific sagacity 

 of the Clarks, to whom the work will un- 

 doubtedly be confided, to make the most 

 perfect instrument yet known. 



The book treats largely, too, of the his- 

 tory of the private observatories of England, 

 and it is no small convenience to have gath- 

 ered into one volume material which, if in 

 print at all, is scattered through many vol- 

 umes of rare periodicals and books. 



In this volume 50 pages are devoted to 

 the Observatory of Greenwich alone, and 

 then follow accounts of those observatories 

 which belong to universities, to learned 



