SAMUEL PIERPONT LANGLEY. 521 



witness the total eclipse of that year from Pikes Peak, at an eleva- 

 tion of 14,000 feet, and besides the scientific memoirs which resulted 

 therefrom and through Avhich he was able to follow the corona to a 

 hitherto unsuspected distance from the sun he wrote pleasant, chatty 

 letters describing the more personal side of the work of the party. 



In the winter of 1878, during the course of a visit to Europe, he 

 spent some time upon Mount Etna, and nrade observations there 

 which resulted in the production of scientific papers and a very inter- 

 esting article entitled "" AVintering on Etna," which was contributed 

 to the Atlantic Monthly. 



In 1881, through the generosity of the citizens of Pittsburg and 

 with the cooperation of the United States Signal Service, he con- 

 ducted an expedition to Mount Whitney, to Avhicli reference has 

 already been made. 



Mr. Langley's general reputjition shortly after this became greatly 

 enhanced by a series of popvdar lectures delivered at the Lowell 

 Institute and at the Peabody Institute at Baltimore, afterwards pub- 

 lished in the Century Magazine, and later still in the form of a 

 book, which has gone through several editions, under the title of The 

 New Astronom3^ These lectures and this work set clearly before 

 educated people the results of his own labors and of others in that 

 branch of astronomy which, dealing not with the questions of longi- 

 tude and latitude, or the discovery of planets, asteroids, or comets, or 

 the other problems of the older astronomers, had to do with the 

 physics of the heavenly bodies; the study through jjatient observa- 

 tion and numerous ingenious devices of not the mere existence of the 

 heavenly bodies, but of their constitution. 



The spirit in which this work is Avritten can be gleaned from its 

 very brief preface: 



" I have written these pages," he says, " not for the professional reader, hut 

 with the hope of reaching a part of that educated public on whose support he 

 is so often dependent for the means of extending the boundaries of knowledge. 



" It is not generally understood that among us not only the support of the 

 Government, but with scarcely an exception every new private benefaction is 

 devoted to ' the old ' astronomy, which is relatively munificently endowed 

 already; while that which I have here ^-alled 'the new.' so fruitful in results 

 of interest and importance, struggles almost unaided. 



" We are all glad to know that Urania, who was in the beginning but a poor 

 Chaldean shepherdess, has long since become well-to-do, and dwells now in 

 state. It is far less known than it should be that she has a younger sister now 

 among us, bearing every mark of her celestial birth, but all unendowed and 

 portionless. It is for the reader's hiterest in the latter that this book is a plea." 



Of the scientific importance of this book and of the other work of 

 Mr. Langley I am naturally dependent for my opinion upon others, 

 but I may be permitted to say that its literary character is unsur- 

 passed — indeed, probably unequaled — by the scientific work of any 



