DORP AT AND POULKOVA 375 



ol")sen\itory ; lie was now chosen b}^ tlie Academy of Sciences and confimied 

 by the Emperor as the first director. In the spring of 1839 he removed his 

 residence from Dorpat to Ponlkova, and on the 19th of Aug-ust the formal 

 iaauguratiftn of the activity of the observatory was celebrated, and those under 

 whose guidance so complete a success had been attained receivecJ the well-deserved 

 congratulations of the Emperor and the astronomers of his empire. 



Whilst we are thus contemplating the rise of Ponlkova we should not for- 

 get the importance of the past ten years in the history of Dorpat. From 182S 

 to 1831 Struve and Tenner had been engaged in joining their respective meas- 

 urements of meridian arcs. The description of this operation was published in 

 1832; the full account of Struve's work having appeared in 1831 in the *'Dio 

 Breitengradmessung." The operations in Finland were then taken in hand 

 and pushed on to their completion in 1844, the difficulties of the ground and 

 the distraction incident to the erection of the Poulkova observatory having 

 delayed the work only a very little. In 1837 was piublished in the "Mensurse 

 Micrometricse " the observations on double stars, made with the Frauenhofer 

 refractor, during the thirteen years that had elapsed since its reception in 1824 in 

 Dorpat. In 1839 appeared the fine volume containing the Dorpat ol>servations 

 of Halley's comet in 1835. Add to these the regular meridional observations 

 and their reductions for the years 1825-1841, as found published in the 6th, 7th, 

 8th and 9th volumes of the Dorpat '■'■ Observatioues Astronomicae," and we see 

 that the older observatory was not neglected in the expectation of the new. In 

 the year 1822 had beeti inaugurated, as before mentioned, the practice of send- 

 ing a few military and naval officers to Dorpat to study under Struve ; his 

 course of lectures was continued with but few interruptions until, by his removal 

 to Ponlkova, he was able to make that a school of practical astronomy as well 

 \ as an observatory. 



The history of Dorpat after the inauguration of Ponlkova presents several 

 very interesting chapters ; the quiet of the shady walks under her linden groves 

 was no longer enlivened by the activity of the many students whom Struve had 

 gathered about him, but if the professors missed their brilliant co-worker, or the 

 social circles missed his numerous family, all were in part reconciled to their loss 

 by the presence of his celebrated successor who ^^ as called to Dorpat, after some 

 little delay. In the winter of 1865-66 Professor Maedler retired from his 

 directorship to find in elaborate historical investigations that rest from his exhaust- 

 ing astronomical labors which failing sight had forced upon him. Six volumes of 

 Dorpat obsei-vations published during the cpuirter century of his administration 

 attest the activity of the observatory, and many investigations into the orbits 

 of double stars, as well as those upon the proper motions of the stars and of our 

 solar system, show his ability as an astronomer. The present director. Professor 

 Clausen, and his assistant, Mr. Schwartz, Avell known by his contributions to the 

 geography of Siberia, have added to their other labors a series of observations 

 with the Reichenbach meridian circle in accordance with the plan proposed by 

 Argelander, as a means for comparing the peculiarities of the principal instru- 

 ments and observers of the world. 



It has been remarked that after the inauguration of Ponlkova it became instead 

 of Dorpat the school of practical astronomy for Russian officers and scientists. 

 Of the former over seventy names are recorded during the first twenty-five years 

 of the existence of the observatory, all of whom have more or less distinguished 

 themselves by their ability and activity. Of Russian and foreign professional astro- 

 nomers about forty have within the same period availed themselves of the privi- 

 lege of from one to five years' residence at this magnificent institution, of whom 

 many are already well known in the astronomical world. It was inevitable 

 that the educated geodesists sent out from Ponlkova through the length and 

 breadth of the Russian dominions should secure for their scientific alma mater 

 the honor and influence that she so richly merited. Struve was pre-eminently an 



