REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON OBSERVATORIES I I 



and to chart all down to the fourteenth magnitude. This gigantic 

 project has been taken up with a degree of faith and a force of de- 

 termination which proves the widespread interest that is now felt in 

 sidereal problems. 



(4) There is remarkable growth in the number of successful at- 

 tempts to measure the motions of stars in the line of sight. Twenty 

 years ago it seemed almost impossible to make these measurements 

 with sufficient accuracy ; now, at a few observatories it has become 

 almost a matter of routine ; and seven or eight of the largest tele- 

 scopes in the world are dovoted in part to this work. 



(5) Until comparatively recent years the measurement of the dis- 

 tances of stars was taken up here and there ; but rarely did a single 

 astronomer attempt to make this measurement for more than two or 

 three stars. Now this work is carried on successfully for series of 

 stars by observers who are devoting many years to it. 



All of these works, and many others not here enumerated, have 

 been undertaken for the purpose of throwing light upon the astron- 

 omy of the stars, in and for itself. 



But activity in these and similar lines is almost wholly confined to 

 the northern heavens. The resources required for extending these 

 researches over the southern sky are wanting, except for the Astro- 

 graphic Chart. Even for that it is a question whether the present 

 or prospective resources of the southern hemisphere will prove 

 sufficient. 



Certainly there is no one subject in physical science that seems 

 better entitled to command some part of the interest of every intelli- 

 gent man than that which relates to the structure and mechanism of 

 the vast aggregation of stars and nebulae which challenge the curi- 

 osity of all beholders. The scale upon which the visible universe is 

 constructed, and the inconceivably rapid as well as perplexing mo- 

 tions which prevail among the bodies that it contains, propose to our 

 minds problems which have a high degree of interest, both physical 

 and philosophical. The nature of these problems we will touch upon 

 more fully in a subsequent section of this report ; and we shall there 

 endeavor to show that there are problems which justly concern as- 

 tronomers of the present generation. There are some secrets of 

 Nature which may forever remain concealed from the eye of re- 

 search. We do not know. But problems which concern geomet- 

 rical relations and motions can be solved when time and opportunity 

 are propitious. From what has been already learned about the 

 structure and mechanism of the universe of stars, it is easy to see 

 that very much more must be very nearly in sight. 



