28 



NATURE 



[March 13, 19 19 



smallness of the number of students should give 

 at least a moment's pause to those who are urging 

 on the movement for the expansion of the univer- 

 sities, and demanding that they should undertake 

 more and more the routine instruction of the com- 

 munity. There is no surer way of killing research 

 than to leave it, as it usually has been left, to 

 take what is over in a rapidly growing democratic 

 university, after every other need has first been 

 canvassed. If we are, as is probable, to have 

 greatly enlarged universities everywhere, and 

 greatly increased Government grants for this 

 purpose, in the name of common sense let some 

 definite and inalienable part of these grants be 

 put in the hands of persons who know what scien- 

 tific research is. 



The St. Andrews research school of chemistry 

 is a brilliant exception just because this has been 

 the case. A private individual. Prof. Purdie, the 

 present professor's predecessor, founded it, built 

 the laboratory, and provided the endowment out 

 of his own private generosity, and left it in the 

 hands of his successors. He knew what research 

 was, and he has been able to effect more for 

 research in Scotland than the million of Mr. 

 Carnegie, in the hands of his trustees. So little 

 did the latter understand the needs of scientific 

 research, or how to promote it before the war, 

 that they spent on their whole research scheme 

 less than one-half what they saved out of the 

 revenue of the fund given them primarily for this 

 purpose. F. S. 



PROF. E. C. PICKERING, For.Mem.R.S. 

 T) Y the death of Prof. Edward Charles Picker- 

 •L* ing, astronomy has lost a great leader, 

 whose stimulating influence and remarkable gifts 

 for organisation have contributed in an extra- 

 ordinary degree to the advancement of our know- 

 ledge of the stellar universe. Born at Boston in 

 1846, Pickering was educated at the Boston Latin 

 School and at the Lawrence Scientific School, 

 Harvard. At the early age of twenty-one he was 

 appointed Thayer professor of physics at the 

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he 

 is said to have established the first physical 

 laboratory in the United States. In 1876 he suc- 

 ceeded Winlock as professor of practical astro- 

 nomy and director of the Astronomical Observa- 

 tory of Harvard College, and continued in this 

 position to the time of his death, which occurred 

 on February 3. 



Pickering's work in astronomy has been espe- 

 cially remarkable for the numerous enterprises 

 of great magnitude which he initiated, and for 

 the energetic manner in which he carried his 

 schemes to successful' completion. Thanks to the 

 generous encouragement given to scientific 

 workers in America, the resources of the Har- 

 vard Observatory were in some measure com- 

 mensurate with Pickering's great conceptions. 

 Beginning with the erection of the 15-in. refractor 

 in 1847, by public subscription, the resources of 

 the observatory have since been so augmented by 



NO. 2576, VOL. 103] 



subscriptions, gifts, and bequests that the annual 

 income from invested funds during recent years 

 has providfed for the employment of a staff of no 

 fewer than forty persons. Through the Boyden 

 bequest, in 1887, Pickering was charged with the 

 establishment of an observatory at a high eleva- 

 tion, under favourable climatic conditions ; and 

 with admirable foresight as to the needs of 

 modern astronomy, he seized the opportunity of 

 locating the new observatory south of the equator. 

 The station selected was at Arequipa, in Peru, at 

 an elevation of 6080 ft., and all important re- 

 searches undertaken at Harvard College have 

 since been made to include stars- in all parts of 

 the sky, from the North to the South Pole. 

 Another important benefaction, which largely 

 influenced the activity of Pickering, was the 

 Henry Draper memorial, by which Mrs. Draper 

 made liberal provision for the continuation of the 

 researches on the spectra and other physical pro- 

 perties of the stars which had been carried on by 

 her husband, and interrupted by his death. 



While precise measurements of position have 

 not been neglected, the policy of the Harvard 

 Observatory, from the beginning, has been the 

 development of the physical side of astronomy, 

 and it was doubtless very congenial to Pickering 

 to find himself in a position to devote his energies 

 mainly to photometry, photography, and spectro- 

 scopy. His earliest work at the observatory was 

 the reduction of Argelander's observations of vari- 

 able stars, calling for extensive photometric 

 measurements of the brightness of the stars which 

 had been utilised for purposes of comparison. 

 Photometric work in general later became 

 a leading feature of his programme of observa- 

 tions. For these investigations he devised the 

 meridian photometer, with which, under favour- 

 able conditions, stars could be observed at the 

 rate of one a minute, with an average deviation 

 not generally exceeding one-tenth of a magnitude. 



Under Pickering's guidance, and largely 

 through his own untiring personal observations, 

 a photometric survey of the entire heavens, in- 

 volving observations to the number of more than 

 two millions, has been made and published. The 

 "Revised Harvard Photometry," forming vol. 1. 

 of the Annals of the observatory, and giving the 

 magnitudes and spectra of 91 10 stars, mainly of 

 magnitude 6*50 and brighter, has thus become an 

 indispensable source of reference in many depart- 

 ments of astronomical research. A later volume 

 of the Annals (vol. liv.) extends the observations 

 to 36,682 stars fainter than magnitude 6'50. This 

 again has been supplemented by numerous pub- 

 lications on photographic photometry, including 

 the results of investigations undertaken for the 

 establishment of a standard scale of photographic 

 magnitudes. These extensive researches are the 

 chief basis of modern standard magnitudes, and 

 have been of immense value to observers of vari- 

 able stars, as well as to those occupied with stellar 

 statistics. 



The great advantages of photographic methods 

 of observation were early realised by Pickering, 



