PROGRESS IN ASTRONOMY DURING THE NINETEENTH 



CENTURY.^ 



By Sir Norman Lockyek. 



In looking back over a century's work in the oldest of the sciences 

 one is .struck not only by the enormous advance that has been made in 

 those branches of the science dealing with the motions of the heavenly 

 bodies which were cultivated at least eight thousand years ago by early 

 dwellers in the valleys of the Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates, but with 

 the fact that during the century that is passing away a perfectly new 

 science of astronomy has arisen. By annexing physics and chemistry 

 astronomers now study the motions of the particles of which all celes- 

 tial bodies are composed ; a new molecular astronomj^ has now been 

 firmly established side by side with the old molar astronomy which 

 formerly alone occupied the thoughts of star gazers. 



Along this new line our knowledge has advanced b}" leaps and 

 bounds, and the results alread}" obtained in expanding and perfecting 

 man's views of nature in all her beauty and immensity are second to 

 none which have been garnered during the last hundred years. 



THE POSITION AT THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY. 



It may be well before attempting to obtain a glimpse of recent 

 progress that we should try to grasp the state of the science at the 

 time when the nineteenth century was about to dawn, and this, per- 

 haps, can be best accomplished by seeing what men were working at 

 this period at which the greatest activity was to be found in Germany; 

 there was no permanent observatory in the southern hemisphere or in 

 the United States. 



First and foremost among the workers — he has, in fact, been 

 described as "the greatest of modern astronomers" — was William 

 Hcrschel, a German domiciled in England. In the year 1773 he hired 

 a telescope and with this small instrument he obtained his first glimpses 

 of the rich fields of exploration open in the skies. From that time 

 onward he had one fixed purpose in his mind, which was to obtain as 

 intimate knowledge as possible of the construction of the heavens. 



^ Copyright, 1901, by The Suu Printing and Publishing Association. Reprinted, by 

 special permission, from The Smi, New York, January 13, 1901. 



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