The interest in his remarks was very great, because many 

 of the observatories of Europe and America are now equipped 

 with the wonderful and complicated spectroheliograph, the 

 principle of which, and many of the improvements are Hale's 

 invention and devices. 



It is interesting to remark that if such a body of learned 

 astronomers had assembled twenty years ago, not one of them 

 would even have heard of such an instrument as the spectro- 

 heliograph. Bllt today it is revealing to the world the story 

 of the tremendous storms agitating the sun's surface, its fierce 

 electrical and magnetic influences, the play of chemical ele- 

 ments in prodigious outbursts of inflamable gases. 



In short, the detailed study of this monarch of the solar 

 system, is giving us insight, or at least a hint, of the evolu- 

 tion of unnumbered suns in the infinite depths of the Universe. 



In listening to this remarkable and versatile speaker, Dr. 

 Hale, one ceases to wonder that he produced a strong impres- 

 sion when he addressed the Royal Society in London, the 

 Academy of Sciences in Paris, and a great assembly in Rome 

 during the past year. May his health, which is frail, be re- 

 stored so that he can mature the great plan he has outlined on 

 the ideal summit of Mount Wilson, and perhaps achieve still 

 greater things in the future. 



The report of the Executive Committee, Prof. Arthur 

 Schuster of Manchester, England, Chairman, was then called 

 for. The other members of the Committee were Prof. Hale 

 of the Solar Observatory,, and Prof. A. Ricco of the Seismo- 

 logical Observatory at Catania, Sicily. 



On Wednesday evening many of the members wended 

 their way along the serpentine paths, first to the observatory 

 containing the 60-inch reflector presided over by Mr. Ritchey, 

 whose genius planned it and whose skill constructed it, so 

 that the colossal machine weighing nearly 50,000 pounds, 

 responds to the slightest touch. There a marvelous and mys- 

 terious object came into view, the ring Nebula of Lyra, which 

 in this telescope shows an almost transparent film quite across 

 what in other telescopes is a vacant center, with a faint star 

 in its midst, supposed by many to be superposed. Another 

 astounding object was the Hercules Cluster, probably a distant 

 universe blazing with more than 200,000 suns. What glorious 

 constellations are figured in those wonderful skies. With un- 

 aided vision we see but 3,000 stars above the horizon at one 

 time. Is it not possible that the night time of that distant 

 universe is as radiant as our day? 



17 



