New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1856-02-27
Prof. GouId's secoud Lecture.

Prof. GouId's Second Lecture.
The lecture given by Prof. Gould last evening, at
the Lyceum Hail. was in continuation of its predeces-
sors. Summing up the results and deductions of the
former lecture, the speaker announced cursory sur
vey of the developments ofastronomy up to the first
century as a preliminary necessary to be gone over
in anticipation Of thes which are intended fol
low it. The history of astronomy was divided into
four great periods, of which the Introductory lecture
] had sketched 4 broad outline.
4 The age of the Roman empire gives no astronomi-
cal facts equal to those of the old Hebrew shep
herds; to the Chaldeans and Babylonians, among
whom astronomy and astrology enrolled as reg
ular professions. The Chinese however, two thou
sand three hundred years before Christ knew and cal
culated great problems and those who lived two
thousand one hundred and seventy-fve years before
Christ chroniced future events which have since oc-
cured and which show the amount of their ntelli-
gence. The prediction of comets for three thousand
seven hundred years in advance was chroncled Also
| and have taken place. Their astronomers wrote
treatises that have lived to this time, and even now
hold true and have renewed proof of their accuracy
and the learning Of their authors in own days.
In Egypt and among the Chaldeans, where pract
cal astronomy cultivated with great care it made
rapid advance. In all these older nations astronomy
was, however, only studied as record Of facts that
had occurred and were to occur. Pythagoras and
others sought to base science upon these facts but
most Of their works were empirical In Rome the
greatest advance was the improvement of their cal
endar leaving it, however no better than the Chinese
had made it two thousand years before. The period
succeeding was a kind Of resurrection of Egyptian
creeds. The Siamese and others took the science |
from this point and added to it trigonometry Then
follows the great era of European astronomy, when
Regio Montanus fourished His real name was diff i
fercnt, but in accordance with those mcshc assumed
q nonlme du plume, and is now known chiefly by it,
At that period astronomy had sort of charlatanis
and trckery about it which it has preserved to this
day. Something Of this was attributable to the
priestly interference Of the times which sought to
rule all sciences and regulate all beliefs, and which
prescribed the Copernican theory. In order to avoid
this censorship, Heigens wrapped mp his discoveries
in mysterious formulas and a strange style.
In 1907 Coperncus conceived the true idea Of the
universe: that the earth moves around the sum- instead
Of the sun around the earth Until l543 he concealed
his discovery, pursued his studies sedulousy among
Egyptian chronclels who he found had advanced the
opinion though not clearly or strongly. When
his great book was being published the mob tried to de-
stroy the Office and printers set it up with composing
of ignorance finally compelled the printers to give up
the copy but they cunningly said nothing of the type
which contained it, and which shortly appeared with
all the information contained in the copy.
Following Copernc,ls came Tycho Brahe keplcr
and Calico who, by the science of comic sections
known othe old Egyptians the great science
along almost to its present point The discovery of
gravity, by Newton, supplied all that was wanting to
former theories to make them perfect and gave us the
groundwork OF modern astronomy which Cicero had
alluded to fifteen hundred years before in saying that
all arts and sciences are connected by indssouhle
bonds.
The history Of Calico, shouting, concerning the
earth but it does move was alluded to in connec-
ton with the Catholic anathema against the doctrine
as giving new start to the investigations which have
bossomed into present learning. Conelnicys and
Kepler had Travelled toward the same end and a work
of the latter, published only thirynine years before
Newton's discovery proved that he had reached the
threshold which his successor crossed.
After 1850, it only remained to verify Keplers
suggestions, concerning the attraction of heavenly
bodies, in order to reach Newton's discovery. New
ton had tried it before and failed and only through
Trenchards method reached the solution that has in
mortaZed him.
The discovery Of gravitaton is the great discovery
VI ahltoAp4J, 1itu HtHollSu III iDounuS With many
others that immortal this one stands to it as the
Christian era does to theology-solitary and unap-
proachable From this moment the study Jumped for
ward and under Bentley at Greenwich, and others,
elsewhere, touched the position in which it:has since
been urged onward, making the eighteenth century
famous for having joined practice to theory, and
confirmed the latter by the former
To astronomy proper, the queries whether there
mountains in the moon or satellites around the
planets, is only incidental The movement of the
heavenly bodies and the laws that guide them are the
problems for its solution.
Such was astronomy at the commencement of the
present century.
In the next lecture the methods used in astronomi.
cal investigation will be discussed
The attendance, we were happy to observe, was
larger than on the former evening and those present
listened with the greatest attention to the very inter
esting lecture. Our report embraces only the general
outlines Of what abomnded in statistics and exact
knowledge.