alone, of his order was allowed to remain in. possession, and 

 here he devoted himself to his Astronomical labors until his 

 death in 1878, when the Observatory was placed under the di- 

 rection of a Government Astronomer. 



Soon after the death of Secchi, Pope Leo XIII took meas- 

 ures to establish another Observatory, which would be under 

 control of the Vatican, and he secured the services of Prof. P. 

 Giovanni Hagen, S.J., an eminent German astronomer and 

 placed him in possession of the three Domes on the summit of 

 the great wall surrounding tlif wardens of the Vatican, but the 

 disturbed condition of the social, military and municipal affairs 

 of Eome during the later years of his Pontificate, prevented 

 his seeing a fruition of his de«i°-n for a satisfactory Astronom- 

 ical establishment. 



His successor, Pope Pius X, almost immediately after his 

 accession, took hold of this work most earnestly and zealously, 

 and under his generous aid and encouragement, Prof. Hagen 

 has been enabled to fit up these Domes with suitable instru- 

 ments for various branches of Astronomical study, and in the 

 largest — the center Dome — he has mounted and equipped with 

 the latest improvements, an equatorial refractor of 16 inches, 

 which was manufactured at Munich. 



In June, 1910, Prof. Hagen was elected an Honorary mem- 

 ber of this Academy, and we have just been favored by him 

 with the gift of the first three volumes issued by the Vatican 

 Observatory since his appointment as Director. 



These publications are of the most elaborate character, and 

 beautiful examples of the printer's art, containing many plates 

 in line engraving and photography. They are printed in 

 French, the first two numbers, treating upon the rotation of the 

 Earth with a history of the Ancient and modern proofs, and 

 an appendix relating to the publications of Prof. II. Kamer- 

 lingh Onnes of Leiden. The third number is peculiarly in- 

 teresting in that the author, Father J. Stein, a Jesuit Priest, 

 takes up the cudgels and strikes some heavy blows at the state- 

 ment, which has become a belief to many, that Pope Calixtus 

 III (Alfonso Borgia), in 1456 hurled the thunderbolts of the 

 Vatican against Halley's Comet which was supposed to be an 

 advance courier of calamities menaced to Christianity by the 

 Turks, or as the author puts it in his Introduction : 



"On a repete a saiete que dans le hue de detourner de la 

 chretiente, alors menacee par les Turcs, les calamites dont le 

 brilliant meteore etait l'avant-coureur, le pape Calixte III 

 avait lance contre l'astre perturbatur les foudres du Vatican. 

 II n'est pas rare de rencountrer cette fable, toute ridicule 

 qu'elle est, dans les auteurs les plus serieux, et, chose etrange, 

 jusque dans les ouvrages de science." 



We welcome these publications with the hope that we will 

 be favored with all future publications by the Vatican Observa- 

 tory. 



