SOME ASPECTS OF AMERICAN ASTRONOMY 75 



The civil war naturally exerted a depressing influence 

 upon our scientific activit3^ The cultivator of knowledge is 

 no less patriotic than his fellow citizens, and vies with them 

 in devotion to the public welfare. The active interest which 

 such cultivators took, first in the prosecution of the war and 

 then in the restoration of the union, naturally distracted their 

 attention from their favorite pursuits. But no sooner was 

 political stability reached than a wave of intellectual activity 

 set in, which has gone on increasing up to the present time. 

 If it be true that never before in our history has so much 

 attention been given to education as now; that never before 

 did so many men devote themselves to the diffusion of knowl- 

 edge, it is no less true that never was astronomical work so 

 energetically pursued among us as now. 



One deplorable result of the civil war was that Gould's 

 Astronomical Journal had to be suspended. Shortly after 

 the restoration of peace, instead of re-establishing the journal, 

 its founder conceived the project of exploring the southern 

 heavens. The northern hemisphere being the seat of civili- 

 zation, that portion of the sky which could not be seen from 

 our latitudes was comparatively neglected. What had been 

 done in the southern hemisphere was mostl}^ the occasional 

 work of individuals and of one or two permanent observatories. 

 The latter were so few in number and so meager in their outfit 

 that a splendid field was open to the inquirer. Gould found 

 the patron which he desired in the government of the Argen- 

 tine republic, on whose territory he erected what must rank 

 in the future as one of the memorable astronomical establish- 

 ments of the world. His work affords a most striking example 

 of the principle that the astronomer is more important than 

 his instruments. Not only were the means at the command 

 of the Argentine observatory slender in the extreme when 

 compared with those of the favored institutions of the north, 

 but, from the very nature of the case, the Argentine republic 

 could not supply trained astronomers. The difficulties thus 

 growing out of the administration can not be overestimated. 

 And yet the sixteen great volumes in which the work of the 

 institution has been published will rank in the future among 

 the classics of astronomy. 



