390 DORPAT AND POULKOVA. 



eminent astronomer as gathered from Lis well-kno^\^l memoirs and liis postlinmous 

 papers, published in the Astronomische Nacliricbten, volume xxs. In this con- 

 struction we find the effect of atmospheric resistance reduced to a minimum, and 

 bv the exchange of the knife edges the cfl'ect of their curvature may be elimi- 

 nated. A mate to the Poulkova apparatus may be found at Geneva, and the 

 complete i nvestigations published by Plantamour demonstrate its excellence. The 

 full publication of Professor Sawitsch's results will be looked for with the more 

 interest because of the early attention paid in Russia to these matters. Preuss 

 in Kotzebue's voyage of circumnavigation in 1822-28, and Parrot and Feodorofl" 

 in their ascent of Mont Ararat in 1830, were the first to attempt to directly measure 

 the influence of mountains in causing local irregularities in the earth's atti'action, 

 if we excejjt an almost forgotten and unpublished " pendulum survey" of the 

 Harz and 13rocken hills, by Zach, in 1797. 



Finally, yet among the really most important instruments, we notice with great 

 interest the many chronometers deposited at the Central Observatory, and contin- 

 ually being investigated there when not in use in the longitude expeditions. To 

 their investigation Colonel SmysslofT has given very special attention, and to his 

 results, as well as to the care with which they are used and their own intrinsic 

 excellence, are to be attributed the accuracy of the longitude detenninations 

 annually made throughout the empire. 



In closing this notice of the observatories of Dorpat and Poulkova, we can- 

 not but revert to that very wide-spread but erroneous notion that astronomy is a 

 science that of all others has least to do with the ever^'day wants of mankind. 

 Such an opinion ignores that history whicli clearly points back through thousands 

 of years to a long array of learned men who have hailed astronomy as the senior 

 and protector of all learning. In the most ancient times the astronomer (and 

 not merely the astrologer) was honored for his valuable services, but it was 

 reserved for Greenwich and Poulkova to develop, each for itself, a path of use- 

 fulness through which to make its importance felt by the state. In so far as 

 similar efforts are made by savants everywhere, they may rightfully look to the 

 state for support: especially in this democratic country, where education is so 

 widely diffused and useful science so liberally supported, is it the duty of inves- 

 tigators to show that the national progress consists not in the mere repetition to 

 the children of that which their fathers knew, but iu the actual inckea.se of 

 knowledge. 



