ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETIES AND ASTRONOMERS. 813 



have not always reached the same results. The mummies would 

 furnish them sure data, and would permit them to supplement 

 the often deceitful evidence of the monuments. But there must 

 not now be much delay in going into the study. European com- 

 panies have been mining in the necropolises of Egyptian animals 

 for more than twenty years. Last year a great exodus of mummi- 

 fied cats took place to England ; and not a month passes that ves- 

 sels loaded with bones and mummies of cattle, jackals, gazelles, 

 and dogs do not sail for Trieste and other ports on the Mediter- 

 ranean. When European naturalists shall at last have decided 

 to study the mummified animals, there may not be one left in 

 Egypt. Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from La 

 Nature 



ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETIES AND AMATEUR 



ASTRONOMERS. 



By M. L. NIESTEN. 



A CURIOUS and notable fact in the history of the social con- 

 dition of the present century is the disposition, amounting 

 to a necessity, which is felt in all classes of society for organizing 

 in groups to work in common to reach some end by the union of 

 individual efforts which one person alone could not attain ; or for 

 forming societies. Devotees of sciences, friends of art, and patrons 

 of letters have alike judged that, co-operating in societies, they 

 could accomplish more and better by collecting scattered forces, 

 and could procure in this way means for stimulating emulation 

 and rewarding merit. 



Astronomy, which has devotees and patrons in all countries, 

 now possesses numerous societies having for their single object 

 the progress of science, and rivaling one another in encouraging 

 and collating the works of their neighbors, to the great advance- 

 ment of knowledge of the sky. 



We find the first Astronomical Society in England. Founded 

 in 1820, it was erected into a corporation by King William IV in 

 1831. Sir John Herschel, son of the illustrious astronomer, under- 

 took the preparation of the address to the friends of astronomy 

 " It may seem strange," he said in the beginning, " that in a 

 country like Great Britain, where science is generally carefully 

 cultivated, and where astronomy has made great progress and 

 drawn upon itself a large share of attention, there should exist no 

 society occupied especially with that science ; and that while 

 chemistry, mineralogy, geology, natural history, and many other 

 important branches of science and art are encouraged by associa- 

 tions which direct, by stimulating, the most energetic efforts of 



