Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1902-02-17
fsmtnMtns facts ano fanctee

would serve it as workshops and de
| positaries of material and as OBJ
servation stations. In large meas
ure, so far as their educational value
| is concerned, all these magnificent
| germs of university appendages are
| now practically wasted. Let the
| facilities, the aggregated deposits Of
the nations ia years of life be
rendered accessible to men anG
women who have been trained into a
capability to use them whose prior
requirements, whose ambitions and
lose talents cauld transmute these
now buried treasures into the
nations life blood
| The chancellor of the university of
Mississippi is trying to work up
| movement in favor of a woman's
| building and new gymnasium, aid
apparently to some purpose, as it is
thought that the next Legislature
will make appropriations for these
buildings,
Women as Astronomers.
| Apropos of the fact, that Miss
Anna Winlock of the Harvard OBJ
servatory staff has collaborated with
| Prof. Simon Newcomb in computing
| the orbit of a newly-found asteroid,
! the New York Tribune pays a tribute
| to the not inconsiderable number Of
women who have won fame and
standing as astronomers, going back
i as far as Sophia Brahe (1556-1643),
| Maria Cunitz (1610-1664), and Eliza
beth, the second wife of Hevelius.
The name Of Sophia Brahe is more
| familiar than that of Maria Cunitz,
who was the greater mathematician.
Mary Somerville Caroline Herschel
! (whose talents werv simply tools
| for her selfish brothar to use), and
Maria Mitchell, the special pride of
America-all these are well known
to every one. Of today, Dorothea
Klumpke, the Californian, who has
| been connected with the observatory
of Paris for the last IL years, whose
thesis on the rings of Saturn won
! her a degree, and who is now at the
/ head of a bureau for measuring star
plates for the new international
! chart of the heavens, is perhaps the
most brilliant American woman
astronomer though Rose O'Halloran
also has gifts Mrs. Williamina
Patton Fleming has been curator of
/ the astronomical photographs at the
Harvard observatory for the past
three or four yaars-a very 1e-
sponsible position. She has dis
] covered stars not known before.
She has II assistants among them
Miss Maury niece of Matthew f.
Maury, in charge of the naval ob-
| to 1861 Another in the Miss Win
lock who has been working with
Prof. Newcomb in computing the
/ orbit of the new asteroid. Miss Win
! lock is the daughter of Prof. Joseph
Winlock, for several years director
| of the Harvard observatory
| In the astronomical department of
several other American universities
there are women who measure star
| plates. Mrs. Elizabeth Preston
Brown Davis, employed at the
nautical almanac office in Washing
ton, detected and corrected an error
| in one of La Places tables, which
had long been a stumbling block to
astronomers, and some years ago,
when Prof. Newcomb wished com
:, puter and held a competitive cx-
animation for the place, Mrs Davis
outstripped a dozen men who at
/ tempted the examination. In Eng
land the British astronomical as
sociation has number Of women
members. One of the best photo
graphs of the total eclipse of the
sun, taken in India two or three
years ago, was by Mrs. E. Walter
Maunder, an amateur at that. The
most eminent women astronomers
are Lady Higgins and Miss Agnes
NJ Clarke. Lady Higgins is the
wife of the spectroscopist, Sir Will
lam Higgins, who is gallant enough
to share the credit with his wife in
all published reports of his ie-
searches. Miss Clarke is an Irish
woman, and has been engaged in OBJ
Sensational work at the Cape Of
Good Hope. A good showing.