108 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 917 



to the subject of which I have just been 

 speaking. Some few proper motions had 

 been observed by earlier astronomers, but 

 when Herschel took up the subject proper 

 motion had not been accurately measured 

 in any ease. 



If a man is walking through a wood the 

 trees in front of him seem to be opening 

 out before him, whilst those behind seem to 

 be closing together. In the same way if 

 our sun is moving relatively to the center 

 of gravity of all the stars, the stars must 

 on the average seem to move away from the 

 point towards which the sun is travelling, 

 whilst they must close in towards its anti- 

 podes. These two points are called the 

 apex and antapex of the sun's path. 



Now Herschel concluded that there was 

 something systematic in the proper motions 

 of the stars, and that there was a point in 

 the constellation of Hercules from which 

 the stars were on an average receding, and 

 that similarly they were closing in towards 

 the antipodal point. The first of these is 

 the sun 's apex and the second the antapex. 

 These conclusions were drawn from the 

 motions of comparatively few stars, but the 

 result has been confirmed subsequently 

 from a large number. Moreover, we have 

 now learned by means of the spectroscope 

 that we are travelling towards Hercules at 

 the rate of about sixteen miles a second. 



During these last few years this grand 

 discovery of Herschel's has gained a great 

 extension at the hands of Kapteyn and of 

 many others, and it has been proved that 

 other systematic motions of the stars are 

 discoverable. The time at my disposal 

 will not permit me to pursue this subject 

 further, but I may say that it now appears 

 that if we could view the universe from the 

 center of gravity of the stars of the Milky 

 "Way, we should see a current of stars com- 

 ing from a definite direction of space and 

 penetrating our system. 



What a vista of discoveries do these 

 ideas open up to the astronomer! Some 

 centuries hence the sun's apex may have 

 shifted, and we may perhaps learn that the 

 solar system is describing the arc of some 

 colossal orbit. The drift or current of 

 stars may also have begun to change its 

 direction, and our descendants may have 

 begun to make guesses as to its future 

 course and as to its meaning. But what- 

 ever developments the futtire may have in 

 store, we should never forget that the 

 foundation of these grand conceptions of 

 the universe was laid by Herschel. Holden 

 ends his "Life of Herschel" with words 

 which may also serve as a fitting end to 

 my lecture: 



As a practical astronomer he remains without an 

 equal. In profound philosophy he has iew su- 

 periors. By a kindly chance he can be claimed as 

 the citizen of no one country. In very truth his 

 is one of the few names which belong to all the 

 world. George H. Darwin 



PAUL CASPAR FMEEB. AN APPRECIATION 

 It is only a little over a decade since 

 America broke out of her chrysalis and took 

 flight into the large world beyond the range 

 of her time-honored coast lights and began to 

 shake oiJ a little of her provincialism. At her 

 farthest outpost she was fortunate in having 

 sent out many able men. Among those was 

 Paul Caspar Freer, who for ten years has been 

 the director of the Bureau of Science of the 

 government of the Philippine Islands. He 

 went there at a time when the kings and cap- 

 tains had not yet departed and before the 

 shouting had entirely died away. His work 

 was not to run down ladrones nor to lend a 

 voice to the tumult incident to a period of 

 reconstruction. He set to work, with little 

 funds and no sympathy, save frorn a very few, 

 to organize what has become to-day the lead- 

 ing scientific organization in the orient. The 

 writer, who is proud of having served under 

 Dr. Freer for six years, knows what he went 

 through, in that time ; of the bitter opposition 



