Arago in 1855, its upshot has been the publication
of the great Paris Catalogue, issued in eight volumes, between 1887 and
1902. From a careful study of their secular changes in position, M.
Bossert has already derived the proper motions of a couple of thousand
out of nearly fifty thousand stars enumerated in it.

Through Dr. Gould's unceasing labours during his fifteen years'
residence at Cordoba, a detailed acquaintance with southern stars was
brought about. His _Uranometria Argentina_ (1879) enumerates the
magnitudes of 8,198 out of 10,649 stars visible to the naked eye under
those transparent skies; 33,160 down to 9-1/2 magnitude are embraced in
his "zones"; and the Argentine General Catalogue of 32,468 southern
stars was published in 1886. Valuable work of the same kind has been
done at the Leander McCormick Observatory, Virginia, by Professor O.
Stone; while the late Redcliffe observer's "Cape Catalogue for 1880"
affords inestimable aid to the practical astronomer south of the line,
which has been reinforced with several publications issued by the
present Astronomer Royal at the Cape. Moreover, the gigantic task
entered upon in 1860 by Dr. C. H. F. Peters, director of the Litchfield
Observatory, Clinton (N.Y.), and of which a large instalment was
finished in 1882, deserves honourable mention. It was nothing less than
to map all stars down to, and even below, the fourteenth magnitude,
situated within 30 deg. on either side of the ecliptic, and so to afford
"a sure basis for drawing conclusions with respect to the changes going
on in the starry heavens."[1578]

It is tolerably safe to predict that no work of its kind and for its
purpose will ever again be undertaken. In a small part of one night
stars can now be got to register themselves more numerously and more
accurately than by the eye and hand of the most skilled observer in the
course of a year. Fundamental catalogues, constructed by the old,
time-honoured method, will continue to furnish indispensable
starting-points for measurement; and one of especial excellence was
published by Professor Newcomb in 1899;[1579] but the relative places of
the small crowded stars--the sidereal [Greek: hoi pholloi]--will
henceforth be derived from their autographic statements on the sensitive
plate. Even the secondary purpose--that of asteroidal discovery--served
by detailed stellar enumeration, is more surely attained by photography
than by laborious visual comparison. For p