188G.] on Phoiograjphy as an Aid to Astronomy. 375 



Professors Adams and Leverricr, both would have been discovered 

 eventually by photography. And if there is now, as some suppose 

 there is — and there is nothing against such a snjiposition — another 

 major planet beyond Nej^tune, it is most probable that it will be 

 thus discovered. 



In thus bringing before you all these wonderful things that can be 

 done by photography I do not wish to imply that it is quite a new 

 thing. Astronomers have knov/n and valued it, but the immense step 

 it has lately taken through the great sensitiveness of the dry plate 

 process has not, I believe, been fully realised. 



For many years the art of photography as applied to astronomy 

 has remained very nearly in the state it was when Eutherford wrote 

 those remarks I have quoted. At a bound it has gone far beyond 

 anything that was ex23ected from it, and bids fair to overturn a good 

 deal of the practice that has hitherto existed among astronomers. 

 I hope soon to see it recognised as the most potent agent of research 

 and record that has ever been within the reach of the astronomer ; so 

 that the records that the future astronomer will use, will not be the 

 M'ritten impressions of dead men's views, but veritable images of the 

 different objects of the heavens recorded by themselves as they 

 existed. 



[A. A. C] 



