Abstract
AMONG the contributions of public and private munificence to the advance of knowledge, none are more worthy of praise than those which have been devoted to astronomy. Among all the sciences, this is the one which is most completely dependent upon such contributions, because it has the least immediate application to the welfare of the individual. Happily, it is also the science of which the results are best adapted to strike the mind, and it has thus kept a position in public estimation which it could hardly have gained if it had depended for success solely upon its application to the practical problems of life. That the means which have been devoted to its prosecution have not always been expended in a manner which we now see would have been the best, is to be expected from the very nature of the case. Indeed, a large portion of the labour spent in any kind of scientific research is, in a certain sense, wasted, because the very knowledge which shows us how we might have done better has been gained through a long series of fruitless trials. But it is due both to ourselves and the patrons of astronomy that as soon as any knowledge bearing upon the question of the past application of money to the advance of science is obtained, use should be made of it to point out the mistakes of the past and the lessons for the future. It is now patent to all who have made a wide study of the subject that large amounts have been either wasted or applied in ways not the most effective in the erection and outfit of astronomical observatories. Since Tycho Brahe built his great establishment at Uraniburg, astronomical research has been associated in the public mind with lofty observatories and great telescopes. Whenever a monarch has desired to associate his name with science, he has designed an observatory proportional to the magnitude of his ambition, fitted it out with instruments on a corresponding scale, and then rested in serene satisfaction. If we measure greatness by cubic yards, then Peter the Great and “Le Grand Monarque” were the founders of two of the greatest observatories ever built. That of St. Petersburg was completed in 1725, the year of Peter's death, and was an edifice of two hundred and twenty-five feet front, with central towers one hundred and forty feet high. It had three tiers of galleries on the outside for observation, and was supplied with nearly every instrument known to the astronomers of the time, without reference to the practicability of finding observers to use them. It was nearly destroyed by fire in 1747, but was partially rebuilt, and now forms part of the building occupied by the Imperial Academy of Sciences. The Paris Observatory, built half a century earlier, still stands, its massive walls and arched ceilings reminding one rather of a fortress than of an astronomical institution.
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NEWCOMB, S. Astronomical Observatories 1 . Nature 26, 326–329 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/026326a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/026326a0