8 14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



individual talents, astronomy, the highest branch of human 

 knowledge, should have remained till now deprived of that pow- 

 erful assistance, and have depended for its advancement only on 

 the isolated and independent labors of individuals. Some persons 

 may believe that astronomy has less need of this kind of assist- 

 ance than other sciences, and that in the perfection which its 

 physical theory has reached its future progress may be safely con- 

 fided to the zeal of individuals and to great national establish- 

 ments devoted exclusively to celestial observations, or, at all 

 events, to those public institutions and academies which are 

 found in all civilized nations, the object of which is the general 

 cultivation of physical and mathematical science. For this rea- 

 son it will be necessary to make known the useful objects that 

 may be accomplished and the obstacles that may be avoided by a 

 society devoted solely to the encouragement and advancement of 

 astronomy." 



The society organized a minute and systematic examination of 

 the sky, dividing it into zones of moderate extent among mem- 

 bers who had leisure and would be disposed to give particular 

 and constant attention to those parts, in order to determine the 

 positions and, if possible, the proper motions of all the objects, 

 large and small, which might present themselves within their re- 

 spective limits, and keep them constantly under review in such a 

 way that not one new celestial body of cometary or planetary na- 

 ture, passing their regions, should be able to escape them. The 

 object which the new society proposed to itself was to a large 

 extent obtained, and the progress which has been realized in 

 astronomy during this century is intimately connected with its 

 history. The desiderata which it indicated and to which it di- 

 rected attention have been supplied ; and while it has not taken 

 a direct part in all the labors that have been performed, it has 

 rendered a great service in making them known and in promul- 

 gating discoveries. There are now in England thirty-four public 

 and private observatories. Most of these establishments have 

 been created since 1820, under the beneficent influence of the 

 Astronomical Society; and this is not one of the least services 

 that it has rendered. In forming a center accessible to profes- 

 sional astronomers and amateurs alike, to higher minds and more 

 modest ones, the Astronomical Society of London was the first in 

 developing the taste for the science to the degree to which it has 

 grown at the present day.* 



The example set by the Astronomical Society of London was 

 followed by Germany. In 1863 there was formed at Leipsic the 



* The society includes now more than seven hundred members. It has published forty- 

 nine quarto volumes of memoirs, and fifty octavo volumes of monthly notices. These two 

 collections form one of the richest and most precious astronomical repertories. 



