844 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 387. 



proposed Cincinnati Observatory. In the interest 

 of this object he visited most of the leading 

 European astronomers, and among others, Sir 

 James South. This was during or about the 

 time of a long litigation, which grew out of a 

 contract between this astronomer and a firm of 

 instrument makers who undertook to mount 

 equatorially a large object-glass belonging to 

 South. Mitohel describes his interview as fol- 

 lows : 



One apartment was examined after another, un- 

 til finally we reached a large room surmounted 

 by a dome of great size and expensive construc- 

 tion, while fragments of the framework for 

 mounting a great equatorial were scattered about. 

 " Here," exclaimed Sir James, " you behold the 

 wreck of all my hopes. Here I have expended 

 thousands and flattered myself that I was soon 

 to possess the finest instrument in Europe, but 

 it is all over, and there's an end." 



I remarked that the object-glass was still in his 

 possession and might yet be mounted, so as to 

 realize his hopes and expectations. 



" No," said Sir James, " Struve has reaped the 

 golden harvest among the double stars and there 

 is little now for me to hope or expect." 



It would be difiBcult to appreciate the feelings 

 which at that moment were sweeping through 

 the mind of the astronomer. Long cherished 

 visions of fame and high distinction, or perhaps 

 of grand discoveries in the heavens which for 

 years had played round his hopes of the future, 

 had fled forever. Another had reaped the golden 

 harvest, and like Clairault who wept that there 

 was not for him, as for Newton, the problem of the 

 universe to solve. Sir James South could almost 

 weep to think that another's eye had been per- 

 mitted to sweep over the far distant realms of 

 space, which he had long hoped might remain his 

 own peculiar province. 



Yet this very field which Struve was sup- 

 posed to have exhausted is precisely where 

 Burnham was winning his laurels a quarter 

 of a century later. As to its exhaustion 

 we have the best of authority in Burnham 's 

 own words. He says : 



The late L. W. Webb, author of ' Celestial Objects 

 for Common Telescopes,' one of the most eminent 

 English amateur astronomers, in a letter written 

 to me in 1873, after the publication of my first 

 three catalogues said : " It will hardly be possible 

 for you to go on for any great length of time as 

 you have begun because the number of such ob- 



jects is not interminable, and every fresh dis- 

 covery is one less to be made." Since that time 

 more than 1,000 new double stars have been 

 added to my own catalogue, and the prospect of 

 future discoveries is as promising and encoura- 

 ging as when the first star was found with the six- 

 inch telescope. 



It seems strange when we think of the 

 thousands of years during which the hu- 

 man race has inhabited this planet, that 

 so long a period elapsed before anything 

 which could properly be called scientific in- 

 quiry manifested itself. 



One of the first problems to present it- 

 self was the greatest of all and may be 

 said to include all others, viz., the prob- 

 lem of the universe itself ; the origin, struc- 

 ture and end of the world on which we live 

 and of the attendant bodies as the sun, 

 moon and stars were supposed to be. 

 Naturally the first attempts at solution 

 were what may be called theological. One 

 such with which we are all familiar forms 

 the opening paragraph of the book of 

 Genesis, 'In the beginning God created the 

 heavens and the earth.' As humble in- 

 quirers after knowledge I have no doubt 

 we may accept this account without the 

 slightest hesitation, but this helps us very 

 little in our quest for scientific truth. 

 Neither the heavens nor the earth nor any- 

 thing therein is the result of a supreme act 

 of creative power exerted once and for all, 

 but rather of an unfolding or evolution 

 from a former condition in accordance with 

 the unchanging laws of nature. 



Suppose by the way of fixing our ideas 

 that we were able to trace backn^ard the 

 history of our earth from its present status 

 to that of a highly heated self-luminous 

 globe, before life in any form had made its 

 appearance, or carrying our history far- 

 ther into the past to a time when this earth 

 with the sun and all of the planets were 

 united in a single mass of nebulous mat- 

 ter filling and extending far beyond the 

 orbit of Neptune. Have we now reached 



