or of knowledge is no less patriotic
than his fellow-citizens, and vies with them in devotion to the public
welfare. The active interest which such cultivators took, first in the
prosecution of the war and then in the restoration of the Union,
naturally distracted their attention from their favorite pursuits. But
no sooner was political stability reached than a wave of intellectual
activity set in, which has gone on increasing up to the present time.
If it be true that never before in our history has so much attention
been given to education as now; that never before did so many men
devote themselves to the diffusion of knowledge, it is no less true
that never was astronomical work so energetically pursued among us as
at the present time.

One deplorable result of the Civil War was that Gould's Astronomical
Journal had to be suspended. Shortly after the restoration of peace,
instead of re-establishing the journal, its founder conceived the
project of exploring the southern heavens. The northern hemisphere
being the seat of civilization, that portion of the sky which could not
be seen from our latitudes was comparatively neglected. What had been
done in the southern hemisphere was mostly the occasional work of
individuals and of one or two permanent observatories. The latter were
so few in number and so meagre in their outfit that a splendid field
was open to the inquirer. Gould found the patron which he desired in
the government of the Argentine Republic, on whose territory he erected
what must rank in the future as one of the memorable astronomical
establishments of the world. His work affords a most striking example
of the principle that the astronomer is more important than his
instruments. Not only were the means at the command of the Argentine
Observatory slender in the extreme when compared with those of the
favored institutions of the North, but, from the very nature of the
case, the Argentine Republic could not supply trained astronomers. The
difficulties thus growing out of the administration cannot be
overestimated. And yet the sixteen great volumes in which the work of
the institution has been published will rank in the future among the
classics of astronomy.

Another wonderful focus of activity, in which one hardly knows whether
he ought most to admire the exhaustless energy or the admirable
ingenuity which he finds displayed, is the Harvard Observatory. Its
work has been aided by gifts which have no paral