192 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



Nautical Almanac, a position she held for nineteen years. 

 During the same period she was employed by the United 

 States Coast Survey. 



When Vassar College was opened in 1865 for the higher 

 education of women, Miss Mitchell was called to fill the 

 chair of astronomy and to be the first director of the 

 observatory. In this position she soon succeeded in giving 

 astronomy a prominence that it never had had before in 

 any other college for women, and in but few for men. 



Miss Mitchell was a member of several learned societies 

 and the author of a number of papers containing the re- 

 sults of her observations on Jupiter and Saturn and their 

 satellites. But she is notable chiefly for being the first 

 woman astronomer in the United States and for training 

 up a number of young women who have followed in her 

 footsteps as enthusiastic astronomers. She held her posi- 

 tion at Vassar until 1889, when she died, a few months 

 before her seventy-first birthday. 



Since the pioneer days of Miss Caroline Herschel, the 

 number of women throughout the world who have achieved 

 distinction in astronomy has rapidly augmented. One of 

 the most noted of these was Caterina Scarpellini, niece of 

 Feliciano Scarpellini, professor of astronomy in Rome, re- 

 storer of the Academy of the Lyncei, and founder of the 

 Capitoline Observatory. Born in 1808, she manifested at 

 an early age a decided taste for astronomy, which was 

 carefully developed by her uncle. She it was who organ- 

 ized the Meteorologico Ozonometric station in Rome and 

 edited its monthly bulletin. She exhibited a special inter- 

 est in shooting stars and prepared the first catalogue of 

 these meteors observed in Italy. In 1854 she discovered 

 a comet. She has. also left valuable studies on the probable 

 influence of the moon on earthquakes studies which 

 brought her distinction from several of the learned so- 

 cieties of Europe. In 1872 the Italian government decreed 

 her a gold medal for her statistical labors in science. Since 



