534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



WOMEN" m ASTEONOMT. 

 Bt e. lagkange, 



THERE have been women famous in all the departments of science 

 and art, and many have shown in astronomical studies talents 

 not usually made manifest in their sex. To begin with ancient times, 

 several women whose names have come down to- posterity made them- 

 selves famous in the centuries before the fall of the Western Roman 

 Empire. Among them, the principal one who derived her title to 

 glory from the study of the sciences was Ilypatia, daughter of 

 Theon, of the school of Alexandria, who is nevertheless better known 

 by her philosophical opinions than by her scientific labors. She lec- 

 tured for many years at Alexandria, before numerous and intelligent 

 audiences, on the Neoplatonic doctrines ; but she is also known as the 

 author of an astronomical table which has not come down to us. 

 Wolf relates, in his " History of Astronomy," that she studied mathe- 

 matics and astronomy with such success that she was given a profes- 

 sorial chair, whence she explained the works of Apollonius and Dio- 

 phantus. 



Skipping the ages of darkness and the beginning of the modem 

 epoch, we find our attention fixed in the latter part of the seventeenth 

 century upon the name of the family of Kirch — a name important in 

 many respects. Marie Marguerite Kirch was born at Panitzch, near 

 Leipsic, on the 25th of February, 1670, Her maiden name was 

 Winckelmann, but she married the Berlin astronomer Godefroid 

 Kirch, and became also his scientific companion. She assisted him in 

 his calculations and observations, and in 1702 discovered a comet. 

 Even after the death of her husband in 1710 she did not cease to de- 

 vote herself entirely to astronomical science ; and we have a consid- 

 erable book which she wrote in 1712, in anticipation of the conjunc- 

 tion of Jupiter and Saturn that was to take place in 1713. The 

 conjunctions of the planets now only excite curiosity, and are of no 

 particular interest to astronomers. But the case was different in the 

 times when astronomy was mixed up with astrology, and a very 

 capricious, occult influence over earthly fates was attributed to such 

 especial positions of the stars. With the progress of theoretical 

 astronomy, which showed that these conjunctions were regular events, 

 subject to periodic laws, the ideas on this subject were modified, and 

 the writers upon the phenomena took the pains to notify the public, 

 by the titles of their works, that they had nothing in common with 

 the astrologers. Marguerite Kirch's book consisted wholly of astro- 

 nomical calculations — to the honor, says Bach, of the woman and 

 her age. 



The daughters of Madame Kirch continued to occupy themselves 



