by copyright or patent, nor
can any new worlds be claimed as private property and financed by stock
companies, frenzied or otherwise. Astrology, on the other hand, relates
to love-affairs, vital statistics, goldmines, misplaced jewels and lost
opportunities.

Yet, in this year of grace, Nineteen Hundred Five, Boston newspapers
carry a column devoted to announcements of astrologers, while the
Cambridge Astronomical Observatory never gets so much as a mention from
one year's end to the other. Besides that, astronomers have to be
supported by endowment--mendicancy--while astrologers are paid for their
prophecies by the people whose destinies they invent. This shows us how
far as a nation we have traveled on the stony road of Science.

Science, forsooth? Oh, yes, of course--science--bang! bang! bang!

* * * * *

In the month of March, in Seventeen Hundred Ninety-one, Herschel, by the
discovery of Uranus, found his place as a fixed star among the world's
great astronomers. Years before this, William and Caroline had figured
it out that there must be another planet in our system in order to
account plausibly for the peculiar ellipses of the others. That is to
say, they felt the influence of this seventh planet; its attractive
force was realized, but where it was they could not tell. Its discovery
by Herschel was quite accidental. He was sweeping the heavens for comets
when this star came within his vision. Others had seen it, too, but had
classified it as "a vagrant fixed star."

It was the work of Herschel to discover that it was not a fixed star,
but had a defined and distinct orbit that could be calculated. To look
up at the heavens and pick out a star that could only be seen with a
telescope--pick it out of millions and ascertain its movement--seems
like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.

The present method of finding asteroids and comets by means of
photography is simple and easy. The plate is exposed in a frame that
moves by clockwork with the earth, so as to keep the same field of stars
steady on the glass. After two, three or four hours' exposure, the
photograph will show the fixed stars, but the planets, asteroids and
comets will reveal themselves as a white streak of light, showing
plainly where the sitters moved.

Herschel had to watch each particular star in person, whereas the
photographic lens will watch a thousand.

How close and persistent an observer a man m