e feelings of the astronomers.
Those who refused to fall into line either resigned or were driven
away, and their places were filled with men willing to work under the
direction of their chief. Yet his methods were not up to the times;
and the work of the Paris Observatory, so far as observations of
precision go, falls markedly behind that of Greenwich and Pulkova.

In recent times the institution has been marked by an energy and a
progressiveness that go far to atone for its former deficiencies.
The successors of Leverrier have known where to draw the line
between routine, on the one side, and initiative on the part of the
assistants, on the other. Probably no other observatory in the world
has so many able and well-trained young men, who work partly on their
own account, and partly in a regular routine. In the direction of
physical astronomy the observatory is especially active, and it may
be expected in the future to justify its historic reputation.

XII

THE OLD AND THE NEW WASHINGTON

A few features of Washington as it appeared during the civil war
are indelibly fixed in my memory. An endless train of army wagons
ploughed its streets with their heavy wheels. Almost the entire
southwestern region, between the War Department and the Potomac,
extending west on the river to the neighborhood of the observatory,
was occupied by the Quartermaster's and Subsistence Departments for
storehouses. Among these the astronomers had to walk by day and
night, in going to and from their work. After a rain, especially
during winter and spring, some of the streets were much like shallow
canals. Under the attrition of the iron-bound wheels the water
and clay were ground into mud, which was at first almost liquid.
It grew thicker as it dried up, until perhaps another rainstorm
reduced it once more to a liquid condition. In trying first one
street and then another to see which offered the fewest obstacles
to his passage, the wayfarer was reminded of the assurance given
by a bright boy to a traveler who wanted to know the best road to
a certain place: "Whichever road you take, before you get halfway
there you'll wish you had taken t' other." By night swarms of rats,
of a size proportional to their ample food supply, disputed the
right of way with the pedestrian.

Across the Potomac, Arlington Heights were whitened by the tents of
soldiers, from which the discharges of artillery or the sound of the
fife and drum be