ASPECTS OF AMERICAN ASTROj^OMY. i 



By Simon JSTewcomb, 



The University of Cliicago yesterday accepted one of the most 

 munificent gifts ever made for the promotion of any single science, and 

 with appropriate ceremonies dedicated it to the increase of our knowl- 

 edge of the heavenly bodies. 



The president of your university has done me the honor of inviting 

 me to supplement what was said on tha^t occasion by some remarks of 

 a more general nature suggested by the celebration. One is naturally 

 disposed to say first what is uppermost in his mind. At the present 

 moment this will naturally be the general impression made by what has 

 been seen and heard. The ceremonies were attended, not only by a 

 remarkable delegation of citi/ens, but by a number of visiting astrono- 

 mers which seems large when we consider that the profession itself is 

 not at all numerous in any country. As one of these, your guests, I am 

 sure that I give expression only to their unanimous sentiment in say- 

 ing that we have been extremely gratified in many ways by all that we 

 have seen and heard. The mere fact of so munificent a gift to science 

 can not but excite universal admiration. We knew well enough that 

 it was nothing more than might have been expected from the public 

 spirit of this great West; but the first view of a towering snow peak is 

 none the less impressive because you have learned in your geography 

 how many feet high it is, and great acts are none the less admirable 

 because they correspond to what you liave heard and read, and might 

 therefore be led to expect. 



The next gratifying feature is the gieat jjublic interest excited by the 

 occasion. That the opening of a purely scientific institution should 

 have led so large an assemblage of citizens to devote an entire day, 

 including a long journey by rail, to the celebration of yesterday is 

 something most suggestive from its unfamiliarity. A great many sci- 

 entific establishments have been inaugurated during the last half cen- 

 tury, but if on any such occasion so large a body of citizens has gone so 



1 Address delivered at the University of Chicago, October 22, 1897, in connection 

 with the dedication of the Yerkes Observatory, Printed in the Astrophysical Jonr- 

 ual, November, 1897. 



85 



