ASTRONOMY IN AMERICA. 75 



ASTRONOMY IN AMERIQA. 



Bv EICHAED A. PEOCTOE. 



DURING my visits to America in 1873-"74 and 1875-'76, 1 was led 

 from time to time to notice with interest the progress and prom- 

 ise of astronomical science in America. My own special purpose in 

 visiting America on these occasions partly brought these matters to 

 my attention. The circumstance that in a country so much more 

 thinly peopled than Great Britain it should be possible not only 

 to obtain audiences for lectures on such a subject as astronomy, but 

 to obtain more and better and larger audiences, by far than could be 

 obtained during a lecture-season in England for any single scientific 

 subject whatever, appeared to me in itself sufficiently remarkable. 

 At a first view this might have been referred simply to the fact that 

 the Americans are a lecture-loving people, preferring the quick and 

 ready method of learning the more striking facts of a subject from a 

 verbal exposition to close study and application. But I soon per- 

 ceived that something more than the mere desire for superficial knowl- 

 edge was in question. The number of persons making close inquiry 

 into the subject was nearly always greater (even in proportion to the 

 much greater audiences) than in England. That still more select 

 section of every audience, the actual workers and observers, I also 

 found to be correspondingly large ; while again and again I met with 

 what in England is certainly very unfrequent cases, namely, in which 

 persons, not engaged professionally in the study or teaching of as- 

 tronomy, had privately worked so zealously and so ingeniously in 

 astronomical research as to have effected original discoveries of con- 

 siderable interest. 



I do not propose, however, to enter here into an account of these 

 experiences of my own. To do so would indeed be a welcome task 

 to me, as enabling me in some degree to express not only my sense of 

 the interest taken by Americans in science, but also my recognition 

 of the unvarying kindness with which I was personally received. At 

 Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Brooklyn, St. Louis, 

 Cincinnati, Baltimore, Chicago, Columbus, Louisville, and Minneapo- 

 lis, and, in fact, at all the cities and towns which I visited, I received 

 a generous and kindly welcome from the community, accompanied by 

 acts of personal kindness from individuals, which I shall always hold 

 in grateful remembrance. But this would -not be the place to attempt 

 the task in any case no easy one of expressing my sense of Ameri- 

 can kindness and hospitality. My present purpose is to indicate 

 simply the remarkable progress made by Americans in astronomical 

 science during the last half-century. 



Fifty years ago there were few telescopes and no observatories in 



