Part 15 (1/2)

[Footnote 329: _Astronomical Journal_ (Gould's), vol. ii., p. 97.]

[Footnote 330: _Ibid._, p. 160.]

[Footnote 331: Lord Rosse in _Phil. Trans._, vol. cxl., p. 505.]

[Footnote 332: No. 2343 of Herschel's (1864) Catalogue. Before 1850 a star was visible in each of the two larger openings by which it is pierced; since then, one only. Webb, _Celestial Objects_ (4th ed.), p.

409.]

[Footnote 333: _Mem. Am. Ac._, vol. iii., p. 87; _Astr. Nach._, No.

611.]

[Footnote 334: _Pop. Astr._, p. 145.]

[Footnote 335: This statement must be taken in the most general sense.

Supplementary observations of great value are now made at Greenwich with the alt.i.tude and azimuth instrument, which likewise served Piazzi to determine the places of his stars; while a ”prime vertical instrument”

is prominent at Pulkowa.]

[Footnote 336: As early as 1620, according to R. Wolf (_Ges. der Astr._, p. 587), Father Scheiner made the experiment of connecting a telescope with an axis directed to the pole, while Chinese ”equatoreal armillae,”

dating from the thirteenth century, existed at Pekin until 1900, when they were carried off as ”loot” to Berlin. J. L. E. Dreyer, _Copernicus_, vol. i., p. 134.]

[Footnote 337: _Miscellaneous Works_, p. 350.]

[Footnote 338: _Astr. Jahrbuch_, 1799 (published 1796), p. 115.]

[Footnote 339: _Month. Not._, vol. xli., p. 189.]

[Footnote 340: _Phil. Trans._, vol. xlvi., p. 242.]

[Footnote 341: Grant, _Hist. of Astr._, p. 487.]

[Footnote 342: _Pop. Vorl._, p. 546.]

[Footnote 343: _Phil. Trans._, vol. xcix., p. 105.]

[Footnote 344: _Report Brit. a.s.s._, 1832, p. 132.]

[Footnote 345: _Pop. Vorl._, p. 432.]

[Footnote 346: C. T. Anger, _Grundzuge der neucren astronomischen Beobachtungs-Kunst_, p. 3.]

PART II

RECENT PROGRESS OF ASTRONOMY

CHAPTER I

_FOUNDATION OF ASTRONOMICAL PHYSICS_

In the year 1826, Heinrich Schwabe of Dessau, elated with the hope of speedily delivering himself from the hereditary incubus of an apothecary's shop,[347] obtained from Munich a small telescope and began to observe the sun. His choice of an object for his researches was instigated by his friend Harding of Gottingen. It was a peculiarly happy one. The changes visible in the solar surface were then generally regarded as no less capricious than the changes in the skies of our temperate regions. Consequently, the reckoning and registering of sun-spots was a task hardly more inviting to an astronomer than the reckoning and registering of summer clouds. Ca.s.sini, Keill, Lemonnier, Lalande, were unanimous in declaring that no trace of regularity could be detected in their appearances or effacements.[348] Delambre p.r.o.nounced them ”more curious than really useful.”[349] Even Herschel, profoundly as he studied them, and intimately as he was convinced of their importance as symptoms of solar activity, saw no reason to suspect that their abundance and scarcity were subject to orderly alternation.