677 



ASTRONOMY. 



ASTRONOMY. 



678 



1853. Apparition of a brilliant comet in the northern hemisphere. 

 Cooper's Catalogue of 30,168 stars observed at Markree. The method 

 of recording transits of the stars by means of electro-galvanism 

 introduced at Greenwich. Airy's researches on ancient eclipses. 

 Adam's researches on the secular inequality in the mean motion 

 of the moon. Hangen's researches on the theory of the pendulum, 

 taking into account the figure and motion of the earth. Publication of 

 the American Lunar Tables. Encke gives a new solution of the problem 

 of planetary perturbation. Apparition of a conspicuous comet. Dis- 

 covery of four new asteroids. Hansen's Solar Tables. 



1854. Occurrence of a total eclipse of the suu which was visible in 

 Chili. Discovery of six new asteroids. Lubbock's Researches on 

 Refraction. Captain Jacob's Catalogue of 1440 stars. Airy's Pendulum 

 experiments in the Harton coal mine for determining the mean density 

 of the earth. Determination of the difference of longitude of Green- 

 wich and Paris by galvanic signals. 



1855. Greenwich Catalogue of 1576 stars. Bond's Zone Observations 

 of Small Stars near the equator (First Part). Main's Researches on 

 Aberration and Nutation. Commencement of the publication of the 

 ' Annales de I'Observatoire Imperial/ Paris. Main's Researches on the 

 dimensions of the Rings of Saturn. Commencement of the American 

 Nautical Almanac. Discovery of four new asteroids. 



1856. Discovery of five new asteroids. Researches of Professor 

 Challis on the problem of three bodies. Main's researches on the 

 diameters of the planete. 



1857. Discovery of eight new asteroids. Airy's researches on ancient 

 eclipses. Main's researches on refraction. Carrington's catalogue of 

 circumpolar stars. Hansen's Lunar Tables. The application of photo- 

 graphy to astronomy makes sensible progress. De La Rue and Secchi 

 execute photographs of the moon. Bond obtains photographs of 

 double stars. 



1858. Discovery of six new asteroids. De La Rue succeeds in 

 executing a stereographic photograph of the moon. Le Verrier's Solar 

 Tables. The first comet of the year found by Dr. Bruhns to be 

 periodic, and to be identical with a comet which appeared in 1790. 

 Dr. Winnecke discovers a comet, which he finds to be periodic, the 

 time of revolution being somewhat more than five years. Professor 

 Encke establishes beyond doubt the existence of a continued diminution 

 in the time of revolution of the comet which bears his name, by means 

 of researches prosecuted during a period of nearly thirty years. 

 Occurrence of a total eclipse of the sun which was visible in Brazil, 

 An annular eclipse of the sun observed in England. Completion of the 

 calculations for determining the principal triangles of the Trigonomet- 

 trical Survey of the British Isles, and deduction of the definitive 

 results relative to the dimensions, ellipticity, and mean density of the 

 earth. Maclear, having re-measured and extended Lacaille's arc of the 

 meridian at the Cape of Good Hope, obtains a result which accords 

 with the generally admitted value of the earth's figure. Apparition of 

 a comet of unusual splendour (Donati's), which continued visible to 

 the naked eye for several weeks. 



1859. Airy's researches ou the motion of the solar system in space. 

 The following list of public observatories now in action is taken from 



the ' Nautical Almanac ' for 1862 : 



Altona. 



Ann-Arbor, U. S. 



Armagh. 



Athena. 



Berlin. 



Bilk. 



Bonn. 



Brealau. 



Brussels. 



Buda. 



Cambridge. 



Cambridge, U. S. 



Cape of Good Hope. 



Christiauia. 



Copenhagen. 



Cracow. 



Dorpat. 



Dublin. 



Durham. 



Edinburgh, 



Florence. 



Geneva. 



Georgetown College, U. S. 



Gottingen. 



Greenwich. 



Hamburgh. 



K ,!/,]]. 



Konigsberg. 

 K remsmiinster. 

 Lcipaic. 



Leyden. 



Liverpool. 



Madras. 



Maiihcilil. 



Marburg.' 



Marseilles. 



Milan. 



Modena. 



Moscow. 



Munich. 



Naples. 



Nicolaieff. 



Oxford. 



Padua. 



Palermo. 



I'ali-. 



St. Petersburg. 



Portsmouth. 



Prague. 



Pulkowa. 



Rome. 



San Fernando. 



Stockholm. 



Turin. 



Upsala. 



Venice. 



Vienna. 



Warsaw. 



Washington. 



Wilna. 



The enormous masses of observations which are now published every 

 year are silently affording the means of increased accuracy in every 

 department, and are rapidly seked and applied for the improvement of 

 the theory. 



The materials of modern astronomy are contained 1st, In the 

 publications of scientific societies ; 2nd, In the introductions to the 

 volumes which emanate from public observatories ; 3rd, In the 

 appendices to the annual volumes of ephemerides ; 4th, In journals 

 devoted exclusively to astronomical subjects; and lastly, in the in- 

 dependent publications of individual authors. By far the greater part 

 of the science is to be found recorded in the third and fourth of 

 these distinct repositories. 



The ephemerides, chiefly remarkable for the papers on astronomical 

 subjects contained in them, are : The ' Connaissance des Temps,' o 

 Paris ; the ' Berlin Jahrbuch,' and the ' Effemeridi di Milano.' During 

 the course of the present century a great number of valuable papers 

 by Lagrange, Laplace, Poisson, &c., have appeared in the ' Connaissance 

 des Temps,' but recently the volumes have been falling off somewhat 

 in this respect. The ' Berlin Jahrbuch,' of which Professor Encke is 

 superintendent, maintains in the present day a decided pre-eminence 

 among publications of this class, in so far as relates to the papers 

 appended to each volume. The volumes of the ' Effemeridi di Milano,' for 

 the years corresponding to the close of the last century and the begin- 

 ning of the present, contain many valuable papers by Oriani, Carlini, 

 &c. A very small number of papers only have been published in 

 the form of supplements to the ' Nautical Almanac." 



The greater part of the astronomy of the present day is to be found 

 in the periodicals devoted exclusively to astronomical subjects. 

 These are : The ' Astronomische Nachrichten,' published at Altona ; 

 the ' Monthly Notices,' of the Royal Astronomical Society ; and Gould's 

 ' Astronomical Journal," published at Cambridge, U. S. 



Works on the ffiiiory of Astronomy.- Sherbum's edition of Manilius, 

 London, 1675, contains a list and short account of a very large number 

 of astronomers, and has been much used by succeeding authors. A 

 somewhat similar account is given by De Chales in tome i. (pp. 74-108) 

 of his ' Cursus seu Mundus Mathematicus,' Lugdini, 1690. Weidler, 

 ' Historia Astronomiie,' Vittemb., 1741, contains a valuable collection of 

 facta and dates. Heathcote, 'Historia Astronomiae,' Cantab., 1747. 

 Esteve, ' Histoire Generate et Particuliere de 1'Astronomie,' Paris, 1755. 

 Costard, ' History of Astronomy,' London, 1767. Bailly, ' Histoire de 

 1'Astronomie Ancienne," 4to, Paris, 1775; 'Traitd de 1'Astronomie 

 Indienne et Orientate," 4to, Paris, 1787; 'Histoire de 1'Astronomie 

 Moderne," 3 vols., 4to, Paris, 1779-82. Pingr^'s ' Cometographie,' 2 

 vols., Paris, 1783. Lalande's ' Astronomic,' Paris, 1792, contains a 

 considerable number of historical facts. ' Bibliographic Astronomique, 

 avec 1'Histoire de I'Astronomie, depuis 1781 jusqu' a 1802 : ' this work 

 give* a list of every known astronomical publication, and also an enor- 

 mous alphabetical list of astronomers. The historians of mathematics 

 Vossius, Moutucla, Kiistner, Bossut, and Delambre, ' Rapport Histo- 

 rique,' &c., Paris, 1810 treat astronomy as a part of their subject. 

 Button's ' Mathematical Dictionary ,' and Martin's ' Biographia Philo- 

 sophica,' contain information on English astronomers which is not 

 to be found in foreign works ; and there is a good deal in the 

 histories of the Royal Society, written respectively by Sprat, Birch, 

 mid Thomson. Small's ' Account of the Discoveries of Kepler,' 1804, 

 contains valuable information on the earlier systems of astronomy. 

 Laplace's ' Precis sur 1'Histoire de I'Astronomie,' Paris, 1821, which is 

 also appended to his ' Exposition du Systeme du Monde," is delightfully 

 written ; and there is also much information in the historical chapters 

 of the fifth volume of the ' Mc!canique Celeste." Voiron, ' Histoire de 

 I'Astronomie, depuis 1781 jusqu' a 1811,' Paris, 1811, is a continuation 

 of Bailly's ' Histoire de 1'Astronomie Moderne.' Delambre, ' Histoire 

 de I'Astronomie Ancienne,' 2 vols., 4to, Paris, 1817; 'Histoire de 

 I'Astronomie du Moyen Age," 4to, 1819; 'Hiatoire de 1" Astronomic 

 Moderne,' 2 vols., 4to, 1821 ; ' Histoire de 1'Astronomie au dixhuitieme 

 siecle," 4to, 1827 (a posthumous work) : these various works of Delambre 

 contain a vast amount of critical research ; they are indispensable to 

 the student of astronomical history. Airy's ' Report on the Progress of 

 Astronomy, published in the 'British Association Report' for 1832, 

 contains a great mass of valuable facts relative to the history of astro- 

 nomy in the present century. Narrien's 'Account of the Origin and 

 Progress of Astronomy,' 8vo, London, 1835, contains an excellent account 

 of the progress of astronomy, especially down to Kepler's time. 

 Whewell's ' History of the Inductive Sciences," 1847, and the ' Supple- 

 ment," 1857, may also be consulted with advantage. Professor De 

 Morgan, in a series of papers which have been published from time 

 to time in the ' Companion to the British Almanac," has thrown 

 much valuable light on the history of astronomy in modern Europe. 

 We give the titles of the following : ' Old Arguments against the 

 Motion of the Earth" (Comp. 1836) ; 'Notices of English Mathematical 

 and Astronomical Writers between the Norman Conquest and the year 

 1600 ' (Comp. 1837) ; ' References for the History of the Mathematical 

 Sciences' (Comp. 1843); 'On the Difficulty of Correct Description of 

 Books' (Comp. 1853); 'The Progress of the Doctrine of the Earth's 

 Motion between the times of Copernicus and Galileo ' (Comp. 1855). 

 Jahn's ' Geschichte der Astronomic,' 2 vols., 1844. Grant's ' History of 

 Physical Astronomy, from the Earliest Ages to the Middle of the 

 Nineteenth Century," 8vo, London, 1852, comprises a detailed account of 

 the progress of the theory of gravitation ; besides a history, more or 

 less extensive, of the various other branches of astronomical science. 

 Much historical information will be found in the Annual Reports of 

 the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society. For the general reader, 



