SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 992 



funds is also available, but while these 

 are of the greatest value in aiding particu- 

 lar individuals, the amount is too small to 

 materially advance the entire science. The 

 large funds which might aid individual 

 research are unfortunately employed for 

 other purposes. Scarcely any appropria- 

 tions have been made to women from these 

 funds. One of the greatest needs of sci- 

 ence in America is a fund of moderate 

 size, capable of aiding the men of real 

 genius. The number of such men is not 

 large, and a judicious distribution of a few 

 thousand dollars annually would probably 

 yield greater results than could be obtained 

 in any other way. 



A visit to Europe last summer in order to 

 attend the meetings of two national and 

 two international astronomical societies, 

 enabled me to visit several of the larger 

 observatories and to interchange views with 

 the leading astronomers of the world. I 

 have accordingly selected as my subject for 

 this evening ' ' The Study of the Stars, ' ' and 

 I shall endeavor to transmit to you the 

 latest views as well as the history of this 

 department of human knowledge. It is my 

 wish to present to my professional friends 

 certain facts of a technical nature, and 

 at the same time to make these clear 

 to those of my hearers who have no pre- 

 vious knowledge of the subject. Astron- 

 omy has been called not only the oldest 

 of the sciences but that which has conferred 

 the greatest benefits on man by rendering 

 international commerce possible. While 

 this may be true of the past, the value of 

 the astronomy of the present day lies in its 

 extension of human knowledge and enab- 

 ling the mind of man to traverse fields 

 which until recently appeared to be hope- 

 lessly beyond his ken. 



The first catalogue of the stars was made 

 by Hipparchus about B.C. 128, and was in- 

 serted by Ptolemy in the "Almagest," for 



fourteen centuries the authority in astron- 

 omy for the world. This catalogue, which 

 contained more than a thousand stars, gave 

 both their positions and brightness. The 

 earliest copy that is known of the "Alma- 

 gest" is in the Bibliotheque National in 

 Paris. It is a beautiful manuscript in 

 uncial characters of the ninth century. 

 The other later manuscripts unfortunately 

 differ from it and from each other, so that 

 there is some uncertainty regarding two 

 thirds of the stars, owing to errors of copy- 

 ing. A careful study of these discrepan- 

 cies has been made by Dr. Peters, of Clin- 

 ton, and Mr. Knobel, of London. Each 

 spent several years on this work, and all 

 the papers are in the hands of Mr. Knobel. 

 He is now preparing the entire work for 

 publication and it is hoped that it will be 

 in the hands of the printer in a few months. 



A manuscript of nearly the same age is 

 in the library of the Vatican, and this year 

 a revised edition of it has been published. 

 If we had a correct copy of the original 

 work, it would have a great value at the 

 present time. Half a century ago it would 

 probably have given the best existing values 

 of the proper motions of the stars which it 

 contained, but recent observations enable us 

 to compute their positions in the time of 

 Hipparchus, more accurately than he could 

 observe them, assuming that the motion was 

 rectilinear. This work might, however, 

 throw light on a possible curvature of the 

 motions. The observations by Hipparchus 

 of the light of the stars have a value that 

 will be considered later. 



The first accurate measures of the posi- 

 tions of the stars were made in the middle 

 of the eighteenth century. The catalogue 

 of Bradley in 1755 is even at the present 

 time one of the best means of determining 

 the early positions of the stars. A large 

 number of similar, but later, observations 

 by Hornsby are still unpublished. During 



