DORPAT AND POULKOYA. 



BY CLEVELAND ABBE, DIRECTOR CINCINNATI OBSERVATORY. 



TLe present condition of practical astronomy in the Usitecl States must 

 awaken strong liopes of our future eminence in cultivating tins most useful 

 science. But in order to avoid committing grave mistakes and to press due 

 onward in the path of usefulness, we must carefully study and profit by the expe- 

 rience of our predecessors. Germany and England have each impressed certain 

 characteristic features upon astronomical instruments and methods of research : 

 it may be expected that the younger nations, Russia and America, will with cos- 

 mopolitan impartiality make such use of the results of the past experience of 

 astronomers as will determine an epoch of still further advancement. 



We should do injustice and convey an erroneous inii)ression, however, if we 

 characterized any school of astronomy as especially national — for it is and must 

 be in a considerable degree individual. It is to Kepler and Roemer, to Bradley 

 and Ilerschel, to Bessel and Airy, that practical astronomy is indebted for much 

 of its present perfection, if, indeed, we ought to make any distinctions among a 

 host of names of those who have contributed their experience and labors towards 

 the increase of human knowledge. Those who have studied the steady march 

 of our science during the past fifty 3'ears scarcely need to be reminded of him 

 to whom Dorpat owes its fame and Poulkova its magnificence. To appreciate 

 this latter imperial observatory one must consider the l)eginning of the Ifistory 

 of Struve and his school of astronomy in their humbler home in Dorpat, the 

 Heidelberg of northern Europe : to that beautiful city let us direct our steps. 



Leaving the St. Petersburg and Warsaw railroad at PskoH", whose mouldering 

 battlements have not long been deserted by mailed warriors, sunrise finds us on 

 board of a neat little steamboat that is to ]>ear us down a quiet river and over 

 the famous lake Peipus, away from Russia westward into the ancient country 

 of the conquered Letts. Very interesting are the views of the Lettish iishermen 

 and tlieir villages on our right and left as we in the afternoon ascend the mean- 

 dering Embach. At length the last rays of the setting sun suddenly disclose 

 before us the dome of the observatory and the ruins of the cathedral, amidst 

 groves whose bright autumn leaves annually strew and A\ill at last obhterate 

 the battle-field and the fortress. 



IMan}' are the eventful years preserved in the history of the ancient town of 

 '' Derpt." Centuries before the building of its majestic cathedral, the fortressed 

 hill, covered with its primeval forests, was the chosen battle-ground of Swedes, 

 Letts, Finns, and Ests — themselves the successors of the antediluvian races 

 whose only records are now found in the stone implements collected in the 

 museum of the University. The westward progress of the Sclavonic empiro 

 caused the village at the foot of the hill to become a city of merchants ; whilst 

 with its increasing wealth and strong fortifications it became in peace the thorough- 

 fare of the overUmd traffic between Europe and China and in war the coveted 

 strategic post. Seven times sacked and burned, it had as often risen anew from 

 beneath its ashes, until finally the civilization of southern Europe and the found- 

 ing of St. IV'tersburg robbed Dur})at of its importance. An hundred years ago 

 there remained <m\y ruins and the remembrance of former glory. Here, bhick 

 and mossy with age, the old stone bridge still spanned the Embach ; there, 

 portions of the rebuilt walls, and the quaint chiu'ch of St. John's, told of 



