lel in the liberality
that prompted them. Yet without energy and skill such gifts would have
been useless. The activity of the establishment includes both
hemispheres. Time would fail to tell how it has not only mapped out
important regions of the heavens from the north to the south pole, but
analyzed the rays of light which come from hundreds of thousands of
stars by recording their spectra in permanence on photographic plates.

The work of the establishment is so organized that a new star cannot
appear in any part of the heavens nor a known star undergo any
noteworthy change without immediate detection by the photographic eye
of one or more little telescopes, all-seeing and never-sleeping
policemen that scan the heavens unceasingly while the astronomer may
sleep, and report in the morning every case of irregularity in the
proceedings of the heavenly bodies.

Yet another example, showing what great results may be obtained with
limited means, is afforded by the Lick Observatory, on Mount Hamilton,
California. During the ten years of its activity its astronomers have
made it known the world over by works and discoveries too varied and
numerous to be even mentioned at the present time.

The astronomical work of which I have thus far spoken has been almost
entirely that done at observatories. I fear that I may in this way have
strengthened an erroneous impression that the seat of important
astronomical work is necessarily connected with an observatory. It must
be admitted that an institution which has a local habitation and a
magnificent building commands public attention so strongly that
valuable work done elsewhere may be overlooked. A very important part
of astronomical work is done away from telescopes and meridian circles
and requires nothing but a good library for its prosecution. One who is
devoted to this side of the subject may often feel that the public does
not appreciate his work at its true relative value from the very fact
that he has no great buildings or fine instruments to show. I may
therefore be allowed to claim as an important factor in the American
astronomy of the last half-century an institution of which few have
heard and which has been overlooked because there was nothing about it
to excite attention.

In 1849 the American Nautical Almanac office was established by a
Congressional appropriation. The title of this publication is somewhat
misleading in suggesting a simple enlargement of the famil