science so fascinating, so engrossing as astronomy ; none in which 

 the sober statement of facts ap])eals so strongly to the imagination, 

 and ;vhich excites alike our curiosity and awe, our wonder and our 

 reverence. No other science enables us to realise so vividly the 

 almost boundless powers of the human mind, while, at the same 

 time it impresses upon us our own littleness as compared with the 

 illimitable vastness of the universe and its myriad worlds. 



At the meeting of the British Association last year, Professor 

 Higgins, in his brilliant inaugural address, enlarged upon the 

 marvels of astronomy as revealed by the spectroscope, one of 

 the grandest inventions of this century. After alluding to the birth 

 of the spectroscope at fleideibergm 1859. Professor Higgins pointed 

 out some of the most brilliantreaults accruing from its use, by no 

 means the least being the part it has played in astronomical photo- 

 graphy. Indeed, since the appearance of Virchoffs great work on 

 the solar spectrum and the interpretation of its lines, a rich harvest of 

 results has been gathered by scientific workers. What the telescope 

 was to Galileo tlie spectroscope is to the modern astronomer; the 

 telescope brought near what was remote, but the spectroscope, which 

 takes no note of distance, reveals movements amongthe heavenly 

 bodies which the telescope could not detect ; these are,in their turn, 

 seized by the gelatine dry plate of the camera, and permanently 

 recorded. The value of these astronomical photographs can hardly 

 be over-estimated ; they are immeasurably superior to the best hand 

 drawings for this reasou, that they are absolutely free from any 

 individual bias and have no "theory" to maintain. Valuable as 

 are the drawings of such men as the Herschells, Beer, Madler and 

 others, they are still marred to some extent by the partiality of the 

 respective draughtsmen to some pet theory. Since the introduction 

 of the gelatine dry plate, a great impetus has been given to this 

 branch of photography ; whatj^the photographic plate sees it records, 

 nay more, it observes and discloses what the more finite vision of the 

 astronomer fails to detect. The eye fails to perceive any object 

 which is too faintly luminous to be seen at the first and keenest 

 moment of vision, whereas the light which falls on the photo- 

 graphic plate is continually being taken in and stored up, so that 

 each hour it receives three thousand six hundred times as much 

 light as in the first second. 



Perhaps the most memorable event of the past year h-^.s been the 

 the commencement of the great photographic chart and catalogue 

 of the Heavens, the idea of which was first mooted at the Paris 

 IntcMiiational Conference in 1887. Eighteen observatories have 

 been engaged for the last three years in the preliminary arrange- 

 ments and experiments, and the time has been found none too long 

 for preparing the special instruments for this great work, which 



