424 



NATURE 



[September i, 1892 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



The Berlin Geographical Society are preparing for publica- 

 tion one of the most valuable mementoes of the Columbus 

 celebration, in the form of a magnificent atlas, containing 

 amongst other early maps a series of hitherto unpublished 

 delineations of the Atlantic of very early date. These maps 

 have been discovered in manuscript in Italian libraries, where 

 they were copied by a young German geographer of great 

 artistic power. They will be published with all the brilliant 

 colouring of the original illuminated MSS. 



In the recent risings of the Arabs against European traders 

 and officials on the Lomami in the Congo Free State, there is 

 too much reason to fear that the veteran M. Hodister, Director 

 of the Katanga Company in Africa, has lost his life. This is a 

 <lisaster of a much more serious kind than the mere collapse of 

 a trading company, for M. Hodister in the course of his long 

 service in Central Africa had acquired a remarkable knowledge 

 of the Arabs, and great tact and success in dealing with them. 

 In his personal character he commanded the respect of all with 

 whom he came in contact ; courage he shared with many fellow- 

 explorers, but his calmness in danger and serious earnestness in 

 work are not too common amongst the Congo State officials or 

 the leaders of caravans through the territory. M. Hodister was 

 one of the first Belgian officers appointed on the establishment 

 of the Congo Free State, and as an official, and later as the 

 head of the Katanga syndicate in Africa, he has spent the best 

 years of his life in opening up the Congo Basin. 



The Sixth International Geographical Congress having been 

 fixed to meet at London in June, 1895, an organizing committee, 

 of which Major Leonard Darwin is President, and Mr. J. Scott 

 Keltie Secretary, has been appointed by the Council of the Royal 

 •Geographical Society. Circulars have been sent out calling 

 attention to the fact that the meeting is to take place, and in- 

 viting suggestions. A provisional programme of the proceedings 

 will be drawn up in the course of next year. 



An exhaustive bibliography of Socotra has just been pub- 

 lished as a pamphlet of forty pages by M. James Jackson, the 

 librarian of the Paris Geographical Society. Including refer- 

 ences to maps, there are 176 entries relating to this island ; 

 many of these papers had almost passed into oblivion, and their 

 recovery and systematic presentation is of much value. 



SOME PROBLEMS IN THE OLD 

 ASTRONOMY} 

 T F a comparison were instituted between the position of the 

 -*• modern astronomer and that of his prototype on the plains 

 of Chaldea, it would not be altogether to the disadvantage of 

 the ancient student of the heavens. He stood at the gateway 

 of the unexplored Uranian mysteries, unfettered by the dog- 

 matic theories of a line of predecessors. From his own imagina- 

 tion he constructed hypotheses and theories, with no feeling of 

 uncertainty about the priority of invention, and with little 

 anxiety concerning the agreement of theory and observation. 

 The modern questions that distract the astronomical world had 

 no place among the thoughts that disturbed the tranquillity of 

 his soul. He had not reached that critical epoch when he must 

 choose between the " old " and the " new " astronomy ; and he 

 was free from the harassing perplexity that besets the luckless 

 astronomer of this age who seeks to learn the mysteries of the 

 moon's motion, or strives to formulate the cause and the law of 

 the variation in the terrestrial latitude. The iniquitous be- 

 haviour of the astronomical clock and level, combined with the 

 possible, but unknown, influences of temperature, were not then 

 in league to vex his waking hours and fill his dreams with illusory 

 solutions that ever floated just beyond his grasp. He was not 

 obliged to search the ancient records in musty volumes and strain 

 the limits of conjecture in the interpretation of careless observa- 

 tions and imperfect memoranda ; in short, he was a happy man, 

 free to work in any direction, and not liable to be called upon 

 from lime to time to amuse or to instruct his fellows, or even to 

 weary them, with prosy discourse on his own work or a stale 

 resume of astronomical progress. 



Unfortunately for us, we live in an age when astronomy is 

 no longer a simple subject, stimulating the imagination by the 



I Address delivered before Section A of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, by Vice-President J. R. Eastman. 



nightly display of stellar and planetary glories, and involving in 

 its study only the elements of geometrical analysis. Within the 

 last fifty years the science has been separated into many 

 divisions ; and within a few years several of these branches have 

 assumed new phases. As a result of this continued division, 

 the range of study and investigation has spread beyond the 

 efficient grasp of any individual, and specialists are rising up in 

 all directions. 



It has been the custom for the presiding officer of this section 

 to present, on the first day of the annual session, an address 

 setting forth either the progress in general astronomy or in some 

 branch of the science, or the history or development of some 

 department of mathematics, each confining himself to his own 

 special branch of scientific work. 



It has seemed to me that a formal statement, to this section, 

 of the general progress of astronomy within the last year or the 

 last decade, would be to lay before you a mass of data with 

 which you are already familiar. This view of the case has led 

 me to attempt the presentation of the importance of one branch 

 of astronomical work in which for several years I have taken a 

 deep personal interest, and which, owing to the present 

 tendency towards specialization, is likely to suffisr from serious 

 neglect. 



It is not many years since we first heard of the distinction 

 between the "old" and the "new" astronomy, but in the 

 comparatively short interval since those terms were first used 

 the scope of physics has so expanded in all directions and so 

 adapted itself to its new surroundings that we find it, in one 

 department at least, casting aside its former title and masquerad- 

 ing under the name of astronomy. That this departure has 

 quickened the zeal of many students, stimulated the development of 

 numerous and valuable modes of research, and resulted in grand 

 and important discoveries, is one of the most gratifying scientific 

 facts of this epoch. The direction of this new movement has 

 followed rigorously the line of least resistance. Except in rare 

 instances, that line of work which promises the quickest returns 

 in the proper form for publication is most attractive to the young 

 student of physics and astronomy, and the comparatively inex- 

 pensive apparatus required for the simpler astro- physical work 

 is apt to lead him in that direction. The new and important 

 changes that have been wrought within a few years in the 

 methods of teaching and in the laboratory work in physics, to- 

 gether with the apparent ease with which an account of a few 

 hours' labour with the spectroscope or camera may be spread 

 attractively over several printed pages, have doubtless bad their 

 influence in leading the candidates for honours into the new 

 fields of aslro-physical research. 



The advance in the development of methods of research and 

 the improvements in apparatus are so rapid, and the field is so 

 broad and increasing, that constant vigilance is necessary to keep 

 even in touch with the progress of the " new " astronomy. 

 One of the most striking examples of the achievements in this 

 new line of work has resulted from a skilful combination of the 

 spectroscope and the camera in the determination of stellar 

 motion in the line of sight with a remarkable linear exactness. 



The limits of this address would scarcely suffice to simply 

 name the problems now under discussion by the more modern 

 methods, without essaying even a cursory review of their import- 

 ance or their bearing on current scientific investigation ; and 

 yet, from the true astronomical point of view, all of these ques- 

 tiens are at least secondary to the fundamental problems of 

 finding the true position of the solar system in the stellar uni- 

 verse and determining the relative positions and motions of 

 those stars that, within the range of telescopic vision, compose 

 that universe. 



To this latter phase of our science I ask your attention for a 

 few minutes. These problems still lie at the foundation of the 

 "old " astronomy and cannot be relegated to the limbo of use- 

 less rubbish or to the museum of curious relics, not even to make 

 room for the new-born astro-physics. On this foundation must 

 rest every astronomical superstructure that hopes to stand the 

 tests of time and of observation, and the precision of the future 

 science depends rigorously upon the accuracy with which this 

 groundwork is laid. 



This work was begun in the sixteenth century, but, in spite of 

 all the improvements in apparatus and in methods of analysis 

 and research, a really satisfactory result has not yet been 

 reached. There is no more fascinating phase of the evolution of 

 human thought and skill in the adaptation of means to ends than 

 is found in the development of the mathematical and instru- 



NO. I IQ2, VOL. 46] 



