THE PRUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 271 



to his son, after the father's untimely death, was not in vain. Means 

 for aid in making a new dictionary of the Latin language on the most 

 extensive scale possible, and for other important enterprises, were asked 

 for and granted. Toward the cost of the dictionary the academies in 

 Munich, Gottingen, Leipzig and Vienna contribute and share in direct- 

 ing and furnishing the labor which must be done on it. It is estimated 

 that this will extend over twenty years at least, and require the aid of a 

 score of men. The headquarters of the work are at Munich. An edi- 

 tion of the works of Kant worthy his name has been published, another 

 of the writings of William von Humboldt, another of the mathematical 

 works of Weierstrass. A dictionary of the old Egyptian language has 

 been planned, and work in gathering material for it, in which scholars 

 from different countries are taking part, is now progressing. The 

 value of the academy as a mediator in projecting and carrying out 

 costly works is illustrated in the excavations at Olympia and Pergamon. 

 For the former the sum of $75,000 was granted. The work was 

 planned solely in the interests of scholarship, with the agreement that 

 all articles of value discovered by the excavations should be the prop- 

 erty of Greece and be left within its limits. Suggested by Professor 

 Curtius, entrusted to the care of a man of his selection, the first spade- 

 ful of earth was turned on October 4, 1875, and six years later the last. 

 The results astonished the learned world, and not less so those obtained 

 at Pergamon. 



Preparations for observing the occupations of Venus were begun 

 by Minister von Muhler as early as 1869, and an expedition, at the cost 

 of the academy, was sent to Luxor in 1874, and another to Punta 

 Arenas in 1883. Both were under the direction of the astronomer 

 Auwers, who has published the results of his discoveries in six volumes. 

 In 1878 plans were laid for a proper celebration of the four hundredth 

 anniversary of Luther's birth, and the academy, in carrying out the 

 wishes of the king and of the nation, offered a prize for a perfect edi- 

 tion of the writings of the reformer prior to 1521. The prize was 

 awarded to E. Henrici in 1880, and in June, 1883, arrangements were 

 made for a complete and standard edition of all Luther's works. 



The year 1874 is remembered by the academy as the year in which 

 its income was so increased as to enable it to undertake enterprises 

 previously beyond its reach and at the same time to assist individuals in 

 work for which their private means were insufficient. This change in 

 its affairs was happily emphasized by Mommsen in his speech in July, 

 1874. In it he said there is something more in the world than Latin 

 and Greek, than the upheaval of mountains or than the counting of 

 figures, important as the academy deems them. The academy is and 

 must be a common meeting place for all men of science, and must 

 show an interest in whatever men of science of any nationality may 



