SCIENCE. | 
FRIDAY, MAY 2, 1884. 
COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 
Au friends of science and learning must 
earnestly hope that the difficulties between the 
board of managers of the Winchester obser- 
vatory of Yale college, and the observatory 
committee of the corporation, will be settled 
without injury to the institution. The organi- 
zation of the observatory seems to be some- 
what complex. The corporation of the college, 
in whose hands the supreme power is placed, 
finding itself unable to immediately organize 
the establishment, appointed a board of man- 
agers, among whom were included Professors 
Lyman, Newton, and Loomis, to advise and 
recommend measures, and to execute such 
plans as should be approved by the corpora- 
tion. Under this authority, Professor Newton 
was made director before the funds were suf- 
ficient to justify the completion of the organi- 
zation. The horological and thermometric 
bureaus were established before any appliances 
for astronomical work were completed. In 
the mean time, a heliometer of the first class, 
indeed the largest and finest ever made, has 
been procured, and arrangements made for its 
use by a skilful astronomer. 
The present difficulty seems to have grown 
out of the peculiar position of the two bureaus 
above mentioned, which gave rise to a diver- 
gence of views on the subject of their rela- 
tions to the rest of the establishment. These 
bureaus have done excellent work in testing 
thermometers and time-pieces, and in calling 
public attention to the lack of precision in 
observations of temperature, owing to defects 
in thermometers. Notwithstanding their pub- 
lic utility, the board of managers seem to have 
considered the propriety of their permanent. 
support from a fund designed for scientific 
research as open to question, while the cor- 
poration committee desires to make them the 
| No. 65.— 1884, 
main feature of the institution, and, indeed, to 
take them out of the control of the director. 
This committee also proposes to abolish the 
board of managers, which seems to imply dis- 
satisfaction with their work, and to organize 
the observatory in a way which is so strongly 
disapproved by the board, that Professor New- 
ton has resigned the directorship, and at least 
one other member has left the board. As the 
details of the plan have not been made public, 
it cannot be made the subject of intelligent 
criticism; but it is hardly possible to avoid 
the impression that the authorities of the col- 
lege are not sufficiently alive to the necessity 
of having the observatory managed by some 
competent and responsible authority, whether 
an individual or a board. 
Tue recent award of the gold medal of the 
Royal astronomical society to Mr. A. Ainslie 
Common of Ealing, Eng., reference to which 
is made in another column, should prove a 
powerful incentive to the amateur astronomer ; 
and the remarks of the president of the society, 
Mr. E. J. Stone, in his presentation address, 
are no less important as indicating in general 
the way in which the amateur should go to 
work. <A clear conception of the needs of 
astronomy in some special direction should 
precede all efforts to provide instrumental 
means; and the means should thus be suited 
to the ends sought. The speedy fossilizing of 
many an excellent instrumental outfit might 
thus be forestalled. The professional astrono- 
mer is frequently compelled to note the abso- 
lute incomparability of work done with the 
costliness and variety of the instrumental out- 
fit; which means, of course, that scientific 
work of real worth is achieved, not so much by 
the telescope as by the observer who stands 
behind it. And it is worth the while, in this 
era of big telescopes, when the chief inquiry 
relates to the superior limit in size attainable, 
to glance backward at the results already 
