The Wichita daily eagle., 1897-11-26

From the First InventIon of Optical and
Mechanical Appliances for Finding Ont
What the Universe Is Made Of-Au In
teresting Gathering q Bra,ny Men on
the Shores of Lake G tneva.
The installation of huge telescope az
fords fitting occasion for recalling the
state of astronomy before such instru-
nents had been invented, for the prog
ress Of this science, more than any other
has alway. been closely associated with
the development and application of
mechanical processes and skill. Earlier
than the seventeenth century the size
of the planets could not oe measured,
none Of their satellites except our moon
were known, the phases of Mercury and
Venus were merely conjectured, and
accurate positions of sun, moon, and
planets among the stars and Of the
stars among themselves were impossi-
be all because there were no telescop-
cs. More than a haif-century elaps I'd
after the invention of the telescope be-.
fore Picard combined it with q gradual
ed circle in such a way that the mea-
surement. of angles was greatly i'm
proved. Then arose the necessity for
accurate time; but, although Calico
mad learned the principles governing the
pendulum, astronomy had to wait FOR
the mechanical genius of Huygens be-
fore satisfactory clock was invented.
about 1851. Nearly all the large reflect
ing telescopes ever built were construct
ed by astronomers VINO possessed also
great facility in pratical mechanics;and
the rapid and significant advances in
nearly all departments Of astronomy
during the la.t half-century would not
nave been possible except through the
skill and patience of glass makers, op-
ticians, and instrument-builder., whose
work has reach almost the limit of uer-
fection.
Before 1860, If We expect the meagre
evidence from meteoric masses Of stone
and iron, some of which actually been
Geen to fall, it is proper to say that our
ignorance of the physical construction
Of other worlds than ours was simply
analysis as formulated by Kirchhoff led
the way to knowledge of the elements
composing every heavenly body, no mat
ter what its distance, provided only it
is giving oUt light intense enough to
reach our eyes. But since Newton, no
necessary step bad been taken along this
road until the way to this signal dis
covery was paved by the deftness Of
WollaSton, who showed that light could
not be analyzed unless first passed
through a very narrow silt; and 70
F!aunhofer, the eminent German optic
ian, who first mapped dark lines in the
spectrum of the sun. So, too, in our
own day, the power of the telescope ana
spetroscope has been vastly extended
by the optical skill and mechanical dex-
terity Of the Clarks, Rowland, Hastings,
and Brashear, all Americans.
The development of astronomy in
America exhibits three distinct and ep-
ochal stages, the first a purely pratical
one, an inheritance from the mother
country. embodying the application Of
astronomical methods to the settling Of
disputed boundries. Mason and Dixons
line. run in 1763-67, is the most conspic-
uous instance. Rittenhouse had observ-
ed the transit of Venus in 1863, and Will
ii3ms of Harvard the total eclipse of the
sun in 1880, but no observatory was es-
tablished for. nearly half-century 10
come. A second period opened during
the first third OF the present century
with the building of the private observa-
tory by Bond at Dorchester, and the
for its own sake by the youthful and
gifted Mason at Yale in 1885. The ma
terial resources of many institutions We're
greatly enhanJhed during this period,
because of two extraordinary astronom-
ical events-one the great comet of 1S4S,
probably the greatest comet of all past
time, and the other the discovery of the
planet Neptune. The American Epne-
meris and Nautical Almanac was found
ed, the National Observatory at Wash
ington was built, and many institutions
Of learning were similarly equipped. In
the main they have been devoted to re-
search in axact astronomy, involving
the application of mathematics to that
science; and here il is that most excel
lent work has been accomplished-among
a score of others, soy ellis. and Yarnell
as trained observers, by Hubbard and
Walker as expert calculators, and Hill
omers of the first order.
Nearly coincident with the civil war
came the invention Of a new instrument
Of reaserch, the spectroscope, whose ap-
pication to the problems of the universe
and its constitution has changed the
whole aspect Of astronomical achievment
ard opened a third era, .unpsralled in
the progress OF science there
Langley upon the sun, OF Hough and
Lowell upon the planets, OF Brooks and
Barnard upon the comets. and Of Drap-
er and Pickering upon the stars. Vast
has been the ampiificsticn OF astronomy
during the ensuing third OF a century.
interest has been enlisted more
and more, because OF the certain dis
covery that Thousands upon thousands of
the stars are duplicates OF our own sun.
ana that some at least of our neighbor
planets seem to be passing through cos
mic stages sihiIar 70 thoes which the
earth itself experiences.
With all this widening of the astron-
omical horizon is impressed upon the in
vestigstor a consciousness that problems
are rising faster than ne can solve them
&C q EA E E<A