December 8, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



749 



It could not be said that he had either the dry 

 humor of IMr. Evarts or the wit of j\lr. Depew; 

 but these qualities were well replaced by the 

 vivacity of his manner and the intellectuality of 

 his face. He looked as if he had something inter- 

 esting he wanted to tell you; and he proceeded 

 to tell it in a very felicitous way as regarded both 

 manner and language, but without anything that 

 savored of eloquence (p. 276). 



Or we may turn to another page and find a 

 note, brief but vigorous, on the visit of Dom 

 Pedro of Brazil ' the only emperor who had 

 ever set foot on our shores.' (May we English- 

 men hope that the Emperor of India will be 

 the second?) On another page is a good 

 story of Argelander and Gould. 



When with him [Argelander] as a student, 

 Gould was beardless, but had a good head of hair. 

 Returning some years later, he had became bald, 

 but had made up for it by having a full, long 

 beard. He entered Argelander's study unan- 

 nounced. At first the astronomer did not recog- 

 nize him. 



" Do you not know me, Herr Professor ? " The 

 astronomer looked more closely. " Mein Gott! 

 It is Gould mit his hair struck through! " 



[By the way, there is a little misprint in the 

 German.] 



But, as above remarked, there are many real 

 pieces of astronomical history, related with 

 the same charm of simple directness. We 

 may surely rank as such the incidents con- 

 nected with the discovery of ' Lane's Law,' for 

 instance. Newcomb was walking home after 

 a scientific club meeting with Mr. Taylor 

 and — 



A little man whose name he did not even know, 

 as there was nothing but his oddity to excite any 

 interest in him, and on the way was explaining a 

 theory to his companions in that ex cathedra 

 style Avhich one is apt to assume in setting forth 

 a new idea to people who know little or nothing 

 of the subject. My talk was mainly designed for 

 Mr. Taylor because I did not suppose the little 

 man would take any interest in it. I was, there- 

 fore, much astonished when, at a certain point, he 

 challenged, in quite a decisive tone, the correctness 

 of one of my propositions, * * * informing us 

 that he had investigated the whole subject and 

 foimd so and so — different from what I had been 

 laying down. * * * Naturally I cultivated the 



acquaintance of such a man. His name was J. 

 Homer Lane (p. 247). 



And again we may put in this category the 

 generous record of the fact that the genius 

 of the Clarks as makers of object-glasses was 

 first recognized in England; the agent being 

 the Rev. W. R. Dawes, who saw, from a letter 

 sent him by Mr. Clark, 



describing a number of objects which he had seen 

 with telescopes of his own make, that the instru- 

 ments must be of great excellence, and ordered one 

 or more of them. " Not until then were the 

 abilities of the American maker recognized in his 

 own country" (p. 140). 



Or again we may reckon as a historical in- 

 cident the vindication, by Professor Newcomb 

 himself, of Father Hell, who had half a cen- 

 tury earlier been accused by Littrow of forg- 

 ing records of observations of the Transit of 

 Venus. By protracted study of the original 

 manuscripts, Newcomb was led to suspect that 

 Littrow could not see differences in color be- 

 tween inks, and on inquiry learned that he 

 was color-blind. 



No further research was necessary. For half a 

 century the astronomical world had based an im- 

 pression on the innocent but mistaken evidence of 

 a color-blind man respecting the tints of ink in 

 a manuscript (p. 160). 



It was not the only occasion on which Pro- 

 fessor Newcomb inferred a fatal flaw in eye- 

 sight from faulty work. On taking charge 

 of the Nautical Almanac Office he found that 

 his proof-reader could not read proofs — he did 

 not appear to see figures, or be able to dis- 

 tinguish whether they were right or wrong, 

 and, therefore, was useless as a proof-reader. 

 " It is not his fault," was the reply ; " he 

 nearly lost his eyesight in the civil war, and 

 it is hard for him to see at all." In the view 

 of counsel this ought to have settled the case 

 in his favor (p. 215). We may put alongside 

 this story Airy's condition of efiiciency in an- 

 other kind of assistant. " I never," he said, 

 " allow an operator who can speak with the 

 instruments to take part in determining a 

 telegraphic longitude" (p. 290). Eor the ex- 

 planation we must refer the reader to the book 

 itself. 

 . Airy is referred to by the author as ' the 



