390 DOEPAT AND POULKOVA. 



eminent astronomer as gathered from Ins well-known memoii's and Ms postliumons 

 papers, published in the Astronomische Nacbricbten, volume xxx. In this con- 

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

 by the exchange of the knife edges the effect of their curvature may be elimi- 

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

 complete investigations 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 Feodorofi' 

 in their ascent of Mont Ararat in 1830, were the first to attempt to directly measm'e 

 the influence of mountains in causing local irregularities in the eai'th's attraction, 

 if we except an almost forgotten and unpublished '^ pendulum survey" of the 

 Harz and ISrocken hills, by Zach, in 1797. 



Finally, yet among the really most important instruments, >vo 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 Smyssloff 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 determinations 

 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 eiToneous notion that astronomy is a 

 science that of all others has least to do with the everyday wants of mankind. 

 Such an opinion ignores that history which 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 then- fathers knew, but in the actual inckease of 

 knowledtre. 



