Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-12-07
lancaster .9ntelligencer.
rHuRsDAY EVENING DEC. 2. 1882,

THURSDAY EVENING DEC. z. 1882.
Results of q Great Science.
The astronomers had a field day yes
terday, and are deliehed with the gener-
ally propitious sky that was given them.
They had made great preparations for
their observations, which they regarded
as of the very highest Importance as was
exhibited when one of them used the
telegraph and the associated press to
beg the public prayers Of the people, as
sembled in their churches, for a clear
sky. It is evident that astronomers
at least consider themselves to be on
good terms with the doctors of revealed
religion, since they asked for aid and
favor from the preachers; possibly it is
only the geological scientists who hnd
themselves on doubtful terms with the
teachers of divinity. Astronomy is
very pleasant and enticing study, and we
rejoice with its professors that they were
enabled yesterday to make observations
satisfactory to them. A man who knows
anything about astronomy is naturally an
object of awe, if not of alteration, to the
generally uninformed public. We all
have studied the science at school, and we
are all equally and woefully ignorant OF
it out of school. 1t seems remarkable
that a science SO universally studied, so
generally interesting, and SO easily COM
pretended, should he neglected by peo,
pie of intelligence. 1t is seldom that
you meet anyone who pretends to nave
more than a general comprehension ,:f
the movements of the heavenly bodies,
and probably the astronomical knowl-
edge of the most of folks is limited to
the fact that the earth, an orange shaped
body, revOlves upon its axis around the
sun. This is an improvement on the
ancient ignorance which put our orb
upon a big turtles back and revolved the
sun about it.
The astronomical calculations which
brought Venus to the verge of the sun
at the moment she really appeared there,
before the eyes of all the people who had
been summoned to the spectacle, were
certainly very wonderful in their re-
suits, however simple they may have
been to these professors. The native
Americans, whom the Spaniards in their
invasion awed with the prediction of a
solar eclipse, had not much more reason
for wonder at the fulfllment of the
prophecy than had we when Venus ad-
yanced upon the suns disk at the time
advertised for her appearance there.
For though we know how the knowledge
came to the learned astronomers that the
infexible paths of the heavenly bodies
place them punctually in their appointed
places, it is yet startling to be thus shown
the apparently supernatural knowledge
that science gives its votaries. All the
exertion of the professors yesterday was
for the purpose of obtaining data for the
more accurate measurement of the suns
distance from the earth. This knowl'
edge, while Of great Importance in as.
Economical investigation, is not of any
practical account to humanity. 1t does
not make us healthier or weather., and
hardly even happier, outside the class OF
astronomical specialists. Probably it is
because of the practical unimportance
of the science that it engages so little of
mems attention, despite its beauty and
interest. The hope of productive dis.
covery animates the inquiry into other
sciences {; but astronomy furnishes
nothing to its students but pleasure and
fame.