76 SIMON NEWCOMB 



Another wonderful focus of activity, in which one hardly 

 knows whether he ought most to admire the exhaustless 

 energy or the admirable ingenuity which he finds displayed, 

 is the Harvard observatory. Its work has been aided by 

 gifts which have no parallel in the liberality that prompted 

 them. Yet without energy and skill such gifts would have 

 been useless. The activity of the establishment includes both 

 hemispheres. Time would fail to tell how it has not only 

 mapped out important regions of the heavens from the north 

 to the south pole, but analyzed the rays of light which come 

 from hundreds of thousands of stars by recording their spectra 

 in permanence on photographic plates. 



The work of the establishment is so organized that a new 

 star can not appear in any part of the heavens nor a known 

 star undergo any noteworthy change without immediate de- 

 tection by the photographic eye of one or more little tele- 

 scopes, all seeing and never sleeping policemen that scan the 

 heavens unceasingly while the astronomer may sleep, and 

 report in the morning every case of irregularity in the pro- 

 ceedings of the heavenly bodies. 



Yet another example, showing what great results may 

 be obtained with limited means, is afforded by the Lick observ- 

 atory, on Mount Hamilton, Cal. During the ten years of its 

 activity its astronomers have made it known the world over 

 by works and discoveries too varied and numerous to be even 

 mentioned at the present time. 



The astronomical work of which I have thus far spoken 

 has been almost entirely that done at observatories. I fear 

 that I may in this way have strengthened an erroneous im- 

 pression that the seat of important astronomical work is 

 necessarily connected with an observatoiy. It must be 

 admitted that an institution which has a local habitation and 

 a magnificent building commands public attention so strongly 

 that valuable work done elsewhere may be overlooked. A 

 very important part of astronomical work is done away from 

 telescopes and meridian circles and requires nothing but a 

 good library for its prosecution. One who is devoted to this 

 side of the subject may often feel that the public does not 

 appreciate his work at its true relative value from the very 



