FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN SCIENCE 5 



and the star catalogues of the lamented Gould and his suc- 

 cessors in Cordova, are unexcelled, while the best inventory 

 of modern star science, The New Astronomy, is the work of 

 the American astronomer Langley. Some part of the success 

 of cisatlantic astronomers must be ascribed to the mechanical 

 ingenuity which seems to spring up spontaneously with intel- 

 lectual freedom, and which enabled the Alvan Clarks, father 

 and son, to produce the finest telescopic lenses the world has 

 seen, with no less excellent fittings. Yet there has been no 

 lack of patient waiting and minute scrutiny of the stolid mid 

 European type, as shown by the half century's discoveries of 

 asteroids and planetary satellites and comets, of which America 

 has done the greater part. The prophecy of American pres- 

 tige in astronomy came in 1860, when Newcomb reduced the 

 orbits of the asteroids to a simple system; and it is just now 

 fulfilled beyond all early anticipation in a recomputation of 

 the elements of the solar system by the same indefatigable 

 delver among definite quantities. This work alone marks an 

 epoch; the sun and moon and planets have been weighed as 

 exactly as sugar and tea at the grocer's, and their paths 

 measured as precisely as silks and woolens at the draper's. 

 Most of the ships of civilized nations set their courses by 

 nautical almanacs computed on the Newcombian basis; and 

 the name of Newcomb is more widely known than the name 

 of any other astronomer, and has brought tribute to America 

 from every civilized country. Characteristically American is 

 the work of Chandler, who, first following and then outstrip- 

 ping the brilliant Euler, has reconciled the discrepancies in 

 latitude records of European and American observatories, 

 and discovered a new law of planetary motion, expressed in 

 periodic wandering of the terrestrial poles. Equally charac- 

 teristic is the work of Young on the sun, Newton on meteor- 

 oids, Barnard on comets, and a dozen others in as many spe- 

 cial Unes, including the suggestive results of Percival Lowell 

 in his observatories on both American continents. 



The genius of American astronomers has brought appre- 

 ciation from laymen as well as investigators, and their labors 

 have been rewarded by increased facilities; America is better 

 endowed to-day with observatories and apparatus than any 



