JANUARY 11, 1901.] 
the: number of observations made at the old and new 
Observatories kept pace with those made at Green- 
wich. * * * The facts were laid before the board and 
ignored by it. They would have shown to the credit 
of the Observatory.” 
In the Observatory report for 1892 
scarcely any astronomical observations are 
reported, except with the old equatorial, and 
in the report for 1893 it is still reported that 
few were made, ‘as all the principal instru- 
ments were undergoing repairs.’ 
The absorption of the entire time of the 
working force, for several years in the 
manner stated ; the impossibility of keeping 
up observations and their uninterrupted 
continuance, during this whole transition 
period on such a scale as to keep pace with 
Greenwich, are facts which seem to need 
That 
the board of visitors ignored them is true, 
—the implication that it did so because they 
- would have shown to the credit of the Ob- 
servatory we leave the men concerned to 
elucidation to make them consistent. 
answer. 
“A determined effort was made by the board to pre- 
vent, if possible, the appointment of new men to fill 
the vacancies created by the retirement of the older 
professors of mathematics at the Observatory. * * * 
Notwithstanding the efforts of the board to prevent 
it, these vacancies have all been filled in line with 
the traditional policy of the Observatory, which has 
always been to take for its staff young men of promise 
whose career was before them, in contrast with the 
plan, recommended by the board, of appointing at 
once to high office men whose scientific reputation 
was already established, and whose prejudices and 
animosities were mature and confirmed.”’ 
We find nothing in the report of the 
visitors implying that ‘ prejudices and ani- 
mosities ’ were to be considered as necessary 
qualifications for the offices to be created. 
SCIENCE. 
43 
It would therefore seem that, in the opinion 
of the head of our Observatory, astronomers 
whose scientific reputation is established 
are, as a class, ‘men whose prejudices and 
animosities are mature and confirmed.’ 
We can only regret that his experience 
should have been such as to lead to this 
conclusion. 
A word about Leverrier and the Paris 
Observatory may serve to introduce a state- 
ment found in the papers appended to the 
“Report of the Board of Visitors.’ During 
the first half of the century the Paris Ob- 
servatory had fallen to so low an ebb that 
a radical reorganization was decided upon, 
and Leverrier was chosen as the man to 
effect the desired reform. 
He adopted the principle that his as- 
sistants must either quit the observatory or 
go to work. During his career he caused 
all the observations for fifty years back, 
which had lain unreduced, to be reduced 
by modern methods, arranged and pub- 
lished. He also kept up the regular re- 
duction and publication of current work. 
Besides carrying on all this regular work, 
he published a vast collection of researches 
by himself and others, which forms one of 
the greatest astronomical enterprises ever 
undertaken by one man, and laid much of 
the foundation of exact astronomy up to 
the end of the 19th century. 
In a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, 
found in Exhibit B, page 38, of the ‘ Report 
of the Board of Visitors,’ this work is dis- 
posed of in the following terms: 
“The most eminent astronomer that France has 
produced was an utter failure in the administration 
of the National Observatory at Paris, and was suc- 
