January 1, 1900.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



reckon, and then abstract two, he would not iin-< 

 them. If one were removed, he would miss it, because 

 his manner of counting by ones and twos amounts to 

 the same as if he reckoned by odds and evens." It is 

 difficult to imagine anything much lower than this. 



Perhaps their one redeeming quality is their honesty 

 and truthfulness ; the " Old Bushman " stating that 

 though they will ask for any article that may take 

 their fancy, as if they had a right to it, yet that he 

 never knew them to steal. All who have had much 

 intercourse with them agree that they are naturally a 

 merry and humorous people, with a great capacity 

 for mimicry, taking off with facility any peculiar 

 personal mannerism of those with whom they may be 

 brought in contact, or imitating the movements of 

 the kangaroo and the emu. 



To work of all kinds they have a rooted objection, 

 and the writer last mentioned gives it as his opinion 

 that it would be impossible to make a slave of an Aus- 

 tralian Black. Nevertheless, if I may judge from 

 certain photographs lent rae by Mr. B. Woodward, of 

 the Perth Museum (to whom I am indebted for those 

 illustrating this article), the aborigines remaining in 

 the settled districts do now perform a certain amount 

 of labour. They have also taken (as shown in the 

 annexed illustration) to European clothing — of sorts. 

 But, to quote once more from the " Old Bushman, ' 

 the Australian ladies, who are by no means remarkable 

 for personal beauty, at least from a European stand- 

 point, " seem to care nothing for finery or ornaments. 

 a. dirty blanket, or opossum-rug wrapped loosely round 

 them, and a short black pipe stuck in their hair com- 

 pletes their toilet." Not improbably my lady readers 

 will consider this a more convincing proof of the low 

 grade of the Australian aborigines than any other 

 instance that could be mentioned ! 



Since writing the above. I have had an opportunity 

 of carefully reading Dr. Semen's book " In the Aus- 

 tralian Bush," and am pleased to find that he agrees 

 with the views here expressed as to the racial distinct- 

 ness of the Australian aborigines from their neighbours. 

 But he goes a step further than I have ventured to 

 advance, and suggests that the Australians are really 

 near relations of the Veddas of Ceylon, and are there- 

 fore in reality a low branch of the primitive Cauca- 

 sian stock, and have nothing to do with Negroes, to 

 whom thev are commonlv affiliated. 



ASTRONOMY WITHOUT A TELESCOPE. 



I.— INTRODUCTORY. 



By E. Walter Maunder, f.r.a.s. 



Some years ago, when the Sioux Indiana were be- 

 ginning to get restless and to threaten trouble, it was 

 thought expedient by the authorities at Washington to 

 invite some of the discontented chiefs to an interview 

 with their " Great White Father." the President, and, 

 ■incidentally, to give them a demonstration of the vast 

 resources which they would have to encounter if ever 

 they took up arms against the Federal Government 

 So they came, and were shown some of the mighty 

 machines which modern engineering has produced and 

 in particular some hundred-ton guns. The monster 

 weapons were duly manoeuvred for the red men's benefit 

 They were loaded and fired, and the Indians were con- 

 ducted to the ruin which had been the target that they 

 might mark the terrible destruction which the missile 

 had wrought. The Indians looked, but instead of being 



overwhelmed with astonishment and fear, as their 

 guides had expected, betrayed only a slightly bored in- 

 difference. The United States official in charge of tho 

 demonstration repeated and emphasized his explana- 

 tions when one of the chiefs, with just the faintest, 

 ghost of a satirical smile, which was the utmost mani- 

 festation of feeling his stoical sense of dignity allowed 

 him, said, pointing to the unwieldy weapon, '' You won't 

 come after Indian with that. " 



It was true ! The officials felt its force at once, and 

 the Indians were treated to no more exhibitions of 

 heavy artillery practice. It had been forgotten that 

 the most powerful weapon is not necessarily the most 

 effective for every purpose, and that for some classes 

 of work tho great size of an instrument may be a fatal 

 disqualification. 



A very similar mistake is sometimes made in regard 

 to astronomy, and has no doubt interfered with the 

 popularity of the science as a pursuit. It is too often 

 assumed that nothing of real interest or utility can be 

 achieved without the possession of telescopes of enor- 

 mous power and of corresponding cost. The great obser- 

 vatories maintained in various European countries by 

 the State, or founded in America by millionaires, like 

 Lick or Yerkes, have been thought to command a 

 monopoly of the astronomical advances of the future, 

 since they only possess the telescopes of greatest light- 

 gathering power and most perfect definition. 



This view is far fi'om correct. In the first place such 

 an assumption entirely overlooks a consideration ex- 

 pressed as follows by Mr. W. H. Maw. f.k.a.s., in his 

 recent most admirable Presidential Address to the 

 British Astronomical Association, an address to which 

 I would refer all who are likely to take up practical 

 work in astronomy. Mr. Maw points out that 



" By the time a refractor of this kinil lias bocn erected and 

 equipped, the outlay upon it will have become so large that it 

 would be utter folly to use the instrument for work other than 

 that for which its great power renders it spec'ally fitted. The 

 result of this is that our modern giant telescopes are, with few 

 exceptions, employed, not in doing work which was formerly done 

 by smaller instruments, but in doing work which formerly could 

 not be done at all. Such, for instance, is the bulk of stellar 

 spectroscopic work, including determinations of velocity in the 

 line of sight, the measurement of close double stars, the spectro- 

 scopic examination of nebulte, the discovery of new planetary 

 satellites, and similar matters. We see, therefore, that the 

 establishment of these powerful telescopes has been accompanied 

 by the development of new fields of research, and that the work 

 which was formerly done — and can still be well done — by instru- 

 ments of moderate size has not been reduced." • 



Nor is this all. Not only are the new giant tele- 

 scopes necessarily devoted almost entirely to work which 

 smaller instruments cannot touch, thus leaving to the 

 latter the observations within their compass, but there 

 are departments of work for which a gi'eat refractor 

 is as wholly unsuited as a hundred-ton gun would be for 

 fighting a Red Indian or shooting snipe. Great light- 

 gathering power is not always the most important 

 quality ; for some researches broad grasp of field is far 

 more essential, and here the giant telescopes are prac- 

 tically useless. 



Prof. E. E. Barnard, in one of his lectures on 

 Astronomical Photography, illustrated this point by 

 showing a photograph of tho great nebula in Andro- 

 meda, with all the marvellous detail of ring within ring 

 which the photographs of Dr. Roberts and his followers 

 in this field have made familiar to us. Then over this 



* Journal of the British Astronomical Association, Vol. X., 

 No. 1, p. 8. " 



