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of Edinburgh, Session 1877 - 78 . 
of one, moreover, wlio, while indulging himself in extending his 
Observatory even by profuse public expenditure, — sought to gain a 
character before the country for economy, by starving, or even 
abolishing, their’s. 
If too, the claims of some of those other astronomers to patriotic 
recognition and govermental regard were occasionally too great to be 
altogether and immediately overborne even by Le Yerrier, — he 
undermined, and laid plans which must eventually lead to their 
collapse and removal. Thus, was there a new Observatory lately 
established in the south of Paris, where the Savant, who had car- 
ried on the Meteorological bulletins during the German war, should 
in future devote himself to a new kind of utilitarian meteorology 
for the special benefit of agriculture and the service of the public 
health ; — or was there another new Observatory allowed to be built 
in the north of Paris at Meudon, near Montmartre, for the Savant 
who so nobly risked life and limb by sailing forth in a balloon over 
the heads of the truculent Germans then besieging Paris, — in order 
that France, even in her agony for very existence, should still be 
present among the nations at the observation of a total Solar Eclipse 
on the Northern coast of Africa, — and where, in that new Observa- 
tory, that patriot and fearless astronomer should, with no other con- 
trol over him than the Minister of the Interior, seek to carry out his 
own very original inquiries into the Physics of Astronomy, — -then 
Le Yerrier insisted on having additions of new instruments and 
young subaltern observers added to his own Observatory, to accom- 
plish the very same ends, but on a far grander scale. Or was there a 
new reflecting Equatorial ordered for the Observatory of Toulouse, 
— whereto M. Delaunay, in his short but brilliant career, had sent 
a young astronomer, of genius after his own heart, as Director, — Le 
Yerrier did not actually interfere with its going there, but imme- 
diately ordered, at his country’s expense, for his own Observatory, 
a similar reflecting telescope, one-half larger, and with all the 
economical fittings of the other in modest wood, replaced in his own 
with ne-plus-ultra work in fine metals. 
And then his mere manner was sometimes so intentionally pro- 
voking. 
When President Marshal Macmahon, — striving to entertain nation- 
ally, and mentally impress the Shah of Persia, then on his gorgeous 
