The Reminiscences of an Astronomer Part 19

So confident was I of my theory that I remarked to a friend with whom I had become somewhat intimate, that no one who knew Mr. Adams could have much doubt that he was a Liberal in politics.

An embarra.s.sed smile spread over the friend's features. "You would not make that conclusion known to Mr. Adams, I hope," said he.

"But is he not a Liberal?"

"He is not only a Conservative, but declares himself 'a Tory of the Tories.'"

I afterward found that he fully justified his own description.

At the university, he was one of the leading opponents of those measures which freed the academic degrees from religious tests.

He was said to have been among those who objected to Sylvester, a Jew, receiving a degree.

I had decided to observe the eclipse at Gibraltar. In order that my results, if I obtained any, might be utilized in the best way, it was necessary that the longitude of the station should be determined by telegraph. This had never been done for Gibraltar. How great the error of the supposed longitude might have been may be inferred from the fact that a few years later, Captain F. Green of the United States Navy found the longitude of Lisbon on the Admiralty charts to be two miles in error. The first arrangements I had to make in England were directed to this end. Considering the relation of the world's great fortress to British maritime supremacy, it does seem as if there were something presumptuous in the coolness with which I went among the authorities to make arrangements for the enterprise. Nevertheless, the authorities permitted the work, with a cordiality which was of itself quite sufficient to remove any such impression, had it been entertained. The astronomers did, indeed, profess to feel it humiliating that the longitude of such a place as Gibraltar should have to be determined from Greenwich by an American. They did not say "by a foreigner," because they always protested against Americans looking upon themselves as such. Still, it would not be an English enterprise if an American carried it out.

I suspect, however, that my proceedings were not looked upon with entire dissatisfaction even by the astronomers. They might prove as good a stimulant to their government in showing a little more enterprise in that direction as the arrival of our eclipse party did.

The longitude work naturally took me to the Royal Observatory which has made the little town of Greenwich so famous. It is situated some eight miles east from Charing Cross, on a hill in Greenwich Park, with a pleasant outlook toward the Thames. From my youth up I had been working with its observations, and there was no inst.i.tution in the world which I had approached, or could approach, with the interest I felt in ascending the little hill on which it is situated.

When the Calabria was once free from her wharf in New York harbor, and on her way down the Narrows, the foremost thought was, "Off for Europe; we shall see Greenwich!" The day of my arrival in London I had written to Professor Airy, and received an answer the same evening, inviting us to visit the observatory and spend an afternoon with him a day or two later.

I was shown around the observatory by an a.s.sistant, while my wife was entertained by Mrs. Airy and the daughters inside the dwelling.

The family dined as soon as the day's work was over, about the middle of the afternoon. After the meal, we sat over a blazing fire and discussed our impressions of London.

"What place in London interested you most?" said Airy to my wife.

"The first place I went to see was Cavendish Square."

"What was there in Cavendish Square to interest you?"

"When I was a little girl, my mother once gave me, as a birthday present, a small volume of poems. The first verse in the book was:--

"'Little Ann and her mother were walking one day Through London's wide city so fair; And business obliged them to go by the way That led them through Cavendish Square.'"

To our astonishment the Astronomer Royal at once took up the thread:--

"'And as they pa.s.sed by the great house of a lord, A beautiful chariot there came, To take some most elegant ladies abroad, Who straightway got into the same,'"

and went on to the end. I do not know which of the two was more surprised: Airy, to find an American woman who was interested in his favorite ballad, or she to find that he could repeat it by heart.

The incident was the commencement of a family friends.h.i.+p which has outlived both the heads of the Airy family.

We may look back on Airy as the most commanding figure in the astronomy of our time. He owes this position not only to his early works in mathematical astronomy, but also to his ability as an organizer. Before his time the working force of an observatory generally consisted of individual observers, each of whom worked to a greater or less extent in his own way. It is true that organization was not unknown in such inst.i.tutions. Nominally, at least, the a.s.sistants in a national observatory were supposed to follow the instructions of a directing head. This was especially the case at Greenwich. Still, great dependence was placed upon the judgment and ability of the observer himself, who was generally expected to be a man well trained in his specialty, and able to carry on good work without much help. From Airy's point of view, it was seen that a large part of the work necessary to the attainment of the traditional end of the Royal Observatory was of a kind that almost any bright schoolboy could learn to do in a few weeks, and that in most of the remaining part plodding industry, properly directed, was more important than scientific training. He could himself work out all the mathematical formulae and write all the instructions required to keep a small army of observers and computers employed, and could then train in his methods a few able lieutenants, who would see that all the details were properly executed. Under these lieutenants was a grade comprising men of sufficient technical education to enable them to learn how to point the telescope, record a transit, and perform the other technical operations necessary in an astronomical observation.

A third grade was that of computers: ingenious youth, quick at figures, ready to work for a compensation which an American laborer would despise, yet well enough schooled to make simple calculations.

Under the new system they needed to understand only the four rules of arithmetic; indeed, so far as possible Airy arranged his calculations in such a way that subtraction and division were rarely required.

His boys had little more to do than add and multiply. Thus, so far as the doing of work was concerned, he introduced the same sort of improvement that our times have witnessed in great manufacturing establishments, where labor is so organized that unskilled men bring about results that formerly demanded a high grade of technical ability. He introduced production on a large scale into astronomy.

At the time of my visit, it was much the fas.h.i.+on among astronomers elsewhere to speak slightingly of the Greenwich system. The objections to it were, in substance, the same that have been made to the minute subdivision of labor. The intellect of the individual was stunted for the benefit of the work. The astronomer became a mere operative. Yet it must be admitted that the astronomical work done at Greenwich during the sixty years since Airy introduced his system has a value and an importance in its specialty that none done elsewhere can exceed. All future conclusions as to the laws of motion of the heavenly bodies must depend largely upon it.

The organization of his little army necessarily involved a corresponding change in the instruments they were to use. Before his time the trained astronomer worked with instruments of very delicate construction, so that skill in handling them was one of the requisites of an observer. Airy made them in the likeness of heavy machinery, which could suffer no injury from a blow of the head of a careless observer. Strong and simple, they rarely got out of order. It is said that an a.s.sistant who showed a visiting astronomer the transit circle some times. .h.i.t it a good slap to show how solid it was; but this was not done on the present occasion. The little army had its weekly marching orders and made daily reports of progress to its commander, who was thus enabled to control the minutest detail of every movement.

In the course of the evening Airy gave me a lesson in method, which was equally instructive and entertaining. In order to determine the longitude of Gibraltar, it was necessary that time signals should be sent by telegraph from the Royal Observatory. Our conversation naturally led us into a discussion of the general subject of such operations. I told him of the difficulties we had experienced in determining a telegraphic longitude,--that of the Harvard Observatory from Was.h.i.+ngton, for example,--because it was only after a great deal of talking and arranging on the evening of the observation that the various telegraph stations between the two points could have their connections successfully made at the same moment. At the appointed hour the Was.h.i.+ngton operator would be talking with the others, to know if they were ready, and so a general discussion about the arrangements might go on for half an hour before the connections were all reported good. If we had such trouble in a land line, how should we get a connection from London to the Gibraltar cable through lines in constant use?

"But," said Airy, "I never allow an operator who can speak with the instruments to take part in determining a telegraphic longitude."

"Then how can you get the connections all made from one end of the line to the other, at the same moment, if your operators cannot talk to one another?"

"Nothing is simpler. I fix in advance a moment, say eight o'clock Greenwich mean time, at which signals are to commence.

Every intermediate office through which the signals are to pa.s.s is instructed to have its wires connected in both directions exactly at the given hour, and to leave them so connected for ten minutes, without asking any further instructions. At the end of the line the instruments must be prepared at the appointed hour to receive the signals. All I have to do here is to place my clock in the circuit and send on the signals for ten minutes, commencing at eight o'clock. They are recorded at the other end of the line without further trouble."

"But have you never met with a failure to understand the instructions?"

"No; they are too simple to be mistaken, once it is understood that no one has anything to do but make his connections at the designated moment, without asking whether any one else is ready."

Airy was noted not less for his ability as an organizer than for his methodical habits. The care with which he preserved every record led Sir William Rowan Hamilton to say that when Airy wiped his pen on a blotter, he fancied him as always taking a press copy of the mark.

His machinery seemed to work perfectly, whether it was constructed of flesh or of bra.s.s. He could prepare instructions for the most complicated piece of work with such effective provision against every accident and such completeness in every detail that the work would go on for years without further serious attention from him.

The instruments which he designed half a century ago are mostly in use to this day, with scarcely an alteration.

Yet there is some reason to fear that Airy carried method a little too far to get the best results. Of late years his system has been greatly changed, even at Greenwich. It was always questionable whether so rigid a military routine could accomplish the best that was possible in astronomy; and Airy himself, during his later years, modified his plan by trying to secure trained scientific men as his a.s.sistants, giving them liberty to combine independent research, on their own account, with the work of the establishment. His successor has gone farther in the same direction, and is now gathering around him a corps of young university men, from whose ability much may be expected. Observations with the spectroscope have been pursued, and the observatory has taken a prominent part in the international work of making a photographic map of the heavens. Of special importance are the regular discussions of photographs of the sun, taken in order to determine the law of the variation of the spots.

The advantage of the regular system which has been followed for more than fifty years is seen in the meteorological observations; these disprove some theories of the relation between the sun and the weather, in a way that no other set of meteorological records has done. While delicate determinations of the highest precision, such as those made at Pulkova, are not yet undertaken to any great extent, a regular even if slow improvement is going on in the general character of the observations and researches, which must bear fruit in due time.

One of the curious facts we learned at Greenwich was that astronomy was still supposed to be astrology by many in England. That a belief in astrology should survive was perhaps not remarkable, though I do not remember to have seen any evidence of it in this country.

But applications received at the Royal Observatory, from time to time, showed a widespread belief among the ma.s.ses that one of the functions of the astronomer royal was the casting of horoscopes.

We went to Edinburgh. Our first visit was to the observatory, then under the direction of Professor C. Piazzi Smyth, who was also an Egyptologist of repute, having made careful measurements of the Pyramids, and brought out some new facts regarding their construction.

He was thus led to the conclusion that they bore marks of having been built by a people of more advanced civilization than was generally supposed,--so advanced, indeed, that we had not yet caught up to them in scientific investigation. These views were set forth with great fullness in his work on "The Antiquity of Intellectual Man," as well as in other volumes describing his researches. He maintained that the builders of the Pyramids knew the distance of the sun rather better than we did, and that the height of the Great Pyramid had been so arranged that if it was multiplied by a thousand millions we should get this distance more exactly than we could measure it in these degenerate days. With him, to believe in the Pyramid was to believe this, and a great deal more about the civilization which it proved.

So, when he asked me whether I believed in the Pyramid, I told him that I did not think I would depend wholly upon the Pyramid for the distance of the sun to be used in astronomy, but should want its indications at least confirmed by modern researches. The hint was sufficient, and I was not further pressed for views on this subject.

He introduced us to Lady Hamilton, widow of the celebrated philosopher, who still held court at Edinburgh. The daughter of the family was in repute as a metaphysician. This was interesting, because I had never before heard of a female metaphysician, although there were several cases of female mathematicians recorded in history. First among them was Donna Maria Agnesi, who wrote one of the best eighteenth-century books on the calculus, and had a special dispensation from the Pope to teach mathematics at Bologna. We were therefore very glad to accept an invitation from Lady Hamilton to spend an evening with a few of her friends.

Her rooms were fairly filled with books, the legacy of one of whom it was said that "scarcely a thought has come down to us through the ages which he has not mastered and made his own."

The few guests were mostly university people and philosophers.

The most interesting of them was Professor Blackie, the Grecian scholar, who was the liveliest little man of sixty I ever saw; amusing us by singing German songs, and dancing about the room like a sprightly child among its playmates. I talked with Miss Hamilton about Mill, whose "Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy"

was still fresh in men's minds. Of course she did not believe in this book, and said that Mill could not understand her father's philosophy.

With all her intellect, she was a fine healthy-looking young lady, and it was a sad surprise, a few years later, to hear of her death.

Madame Sophie Kovalevsky afterward appeared on the stage as the first female mathematician of our time, but it may be feared that the woman philosopher died with Miss Hamilton.

A large party of English astronomers were going to Algeria to observe the eclipse. The government had fitted up a naval transport for their use, and as I was arranging for a pa.s.sage on a s.h.i.+p of the Peninsular and Oriental Line we received an invitation to become the guests of the English party. Among those on board were Professor Tyndall; Mr. Huggins, the spectroscopist; Sir Erastus Ommaney, a retired English admiral, and a fellow of the Royal Society; Father Perry, S. J., a well-known astronomer; and Lieutenant Wharton, who afterward became hydrographer to the Admiralty.

The sprightliest man on board was Professor Tyndall. He made up for the absence of mountains by climbing to every part of the s.h.i.+p he could reach. One day he climbed the shrouds to the maintop, and stood surveying the scene as if looking out from the top of the Matterhorn. A sailor followed him, and drew a chalk-line around his feet. I a.s.sume the reader knows what this means; if he does not, he can learn by straying into the sailors' quarters the first time he is on board an ocean steamer. But the professor absolutely refused to take the hint.

We had a rather rough pa.s.sage, from which Father Perry was the greatest sufferer. One day he heard a laugh from the only lady on board, who was in the adjoining stateroom. "Who can laugh at such a time as this!" he exclaimed. He made a vow that he would never go on the ocean again, even if the sun and moon fought for a month.

But the vows of a seasick pa.s.senger are forgotten sooner than any others I know of; and it was only four years later that Father Perry made a voyage to Kerguelen Island, in the stormiest ocean on the globe, to observe a transit of Venus.

Off the coast of Spain, the leading chains of the rudder got loose, during a gale in the middle of the night, and the steering apparatus had to be disconnected in order to tighten them. The s.h.i.+p veered round into the trough of the sea, and rolled so heavily that a table, twenty or thirty feet long, in the saloon, broke from its fastenings, and began to dance around the cabin with such a racket that some of the pa.s.sengers feared for the safety of the s.h.i.+p.

Just how much of a storm there was I cannot say, believing that it is never worth while for a pa.s.senger to leave his berth, if there is any danger of a s.h.i.+p foundering in a gale. But in Professor Tyndall's opinion we had a narrow escape. On arriving at Gibraltar, he wrote a glowing account of the storm to the London Times, in which he described the feelings of a philosopher while standing on the stern of a rolling s.h.i.+p in an ocean storm, without quite knowing whether she was going to sink or swim. The letter was anonymous, which gave Admiral Ommaney an excellent opportunity to write as caustic a reply as he chose, under the signature of "A Naval Officer."

He said that sailor was fortunate who could arrange with the clerk of the weather never to have a worse storm in crossing the Bay of Biscay than the one we had experienced.

We touched at Cadiz, and anch.o.r.ed for a few hours, but did not go ash.o.r.e. The Brooklyn, an American man-of-war, was in the harbor, but there was no opportunity to communicate with her, though I knew a friend of mine was on board.