PRESIDEN'T’S ADDRESS. 9 
If it be desired to demarcate a boundary on the Earth’s surface by astro- 
nomical methods, or to fix the position of any object in the heavens, it is to 
the accurate star-catalogue that we must refer for the necessary data. In 
that case the stars may be said to resemble the trigonometrical points of 
a survey, and we are only concerned to know from accurate catalogues 
their positions in the heavens at the epoch of observation. But in another 
and grander sense the stars are not mere landmarks, for each has its 
own apparent motion in the heavens which may be due in part to the 
absolute motion of the star itself in space, or in part to the motion 
of the solar system by which our point of view of surrounding stars is 
changed. 
If we desire to determine these motions and to ascertain something of 
the general conditions which produce them, if we would learn something 
of the dynamical conditions of the universe and something of the velocity 
and direction of our own solar system through space, it is to the accurate 
star-catalogues of widely separated epochs that we must turn for a chief 
part of the requisite data. 
The value of a star-catalogue of precision for present purposes. of 
cosmic research varies as the square of its age and the square of its 
accuracy. We cannot alter the epoch of our observations, but we can 
increase their value fourfold by doubling their accuracy. Hence it is that 
many of our greater astronomers have devoted their lives chiefly to the 
accumulation of meridian observations of high precision, holding the view 
that to advance such precision is the most valuable service to science 
they could undertake, and comforted in their unselfish and laborious work 
only by the consciousness that they are preparing a solid foundation 
on which future astronomers may safely raise the superstructure of sound 
knowledge. 
But since the extension of our knowledge of the system of the 
universe depends quite as much on past as on future research, it 
may be well, before determining upon a programme for the future, to 
consider briefly the record of meridian observation in the past for both 
hemispheres. 
The Comparative State of Astronomy in the Northern and 
Southern Hemispheres. 
It seems probable that the first express reference to southern con- 
stellations in known literature occurs in the Book of Job (ix. 9): ‘Which 
maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south.’ 
Schiaparelli’s strongly supported conjecture is that the expression 
‘chambers of the south,’ taken with its context, signifies the brilliant 
stellar region from Canopus to a Centauri, which includes the Southern 
Cross and coincides with the most brilliant portion of the Milky Way. 
About the year 750 B.c. (the probable date of the Book of Job) all 
these stars culminated at altitudes between 5° and 16° when viewed from 
