348 ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE, 



and calculus to predict meteorological changes in different 

 parts of the world subject to different local influences, yet we 

 must not hastily reject the notion that the moon as well as the 

 sun may be capable of influencing our atmosphere as well as 

 our tides and magnets. 



Of all sciences none is so comprehensive and elaborate in 

 detail none offers so vast a field for speculation and discovery, 

 and none has attained to such perfection as that of astronomy. 

 And yet with all its great antiquity for it is said to have been 

 studied by the Chaldeans 2,250 years before the Christian era 

 with all the refinements of the present instruments and methods 

 of observing : and with all the increasing supply of astronomers, 

 professional as well as amateur, a supply which seems to increase 

 with the demand we find yet more to be done. 



There are at the present time, in different parts of the world, 

 no fewer than 70 public observatories ; and in England alone 

 there are 12 private observatories, where observations are 

 systematically made and reduced. 



No doubt many private observatories and observers may be 

 found in every country, and it would be no easy matter to 

 estimate the number of individuals so engaged. Assigning to 

 Greenwich that pre-eminence amongst national observatories, to 

 which it is justly entitled, we find that the Astronomer Royal 

 has under his direction eight permanent assistants, and nine 

 supernumeraries. In the principal observatory of the Southern 

 Hemisphere at the Cape of Good Hope there are four per- 

 manent assistants, and four supernumeraries under the direction 

 of the astronomer ; and we should find a proportional staff in 

 most other observatories of any long standing. 



And yet with all this, how unfinished and uncertain do we 

 find the principal and most important work of a fixed observatory, 

 namely, the accurate determination of the positions of the fixed 

 stars. To quote the language of Sir John Herschell, " every well 

 determined star, from the moment its place is registered becomes 

 to the astronomer, the geographer, the navigator, the surveyor, 

 a point of departure which can never deceive or fail him the 

 same for ever and in all places of a delicacy so extreme as to be 

 a test for every instrument invented by man, yet equally adapted 



