Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals Part 24

"I have a friend who wonders that I do not take my astronomical clock to pieces. She supposes that because I am an astronomer, I must be able to be a clock-maker, while I do not handle a tool if I can help it! She did not expect to take her piano to pieces because she was musical! She was as careful not to tinker it as I was not to tinker the clock, which only an expert in clock-making was prepared to handle.

"... Only a few weeks since I received a letter from a lady who wished to come to make me a visit, and to 'scan the heavens,' as she termed it.

Now, just as she wrote, the clock, which I was careful not to meddle with, had been rapidly gaining time, and I was standing before it, watching it from hour to hour, and slightly changing its rate by dropping small weights upon its pendulum. Time is so important an element with the astronomer, that all else is subordinate to it.

"Then, too, the uneducated a.s.sume the unvarying exactness of mathematical results; while, in reality, mathematical results are often only approximations. We say the sun is 91,000,000 miles from the earth, plus or minus a probable error; that is, we are right, probably, within, say, 100,000 miles; or, the sun is 91,000,000 minus 100,000 miles, or it is 91,000,000 plus 100,000 miles off; and this probable error is only a probability.

"If we make one more observation it cannot agree with any one of our determinations, and it changes our probable error.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUST OF MARIA MITCh.e.l.l.

_From Original made by Miss Emma F. Brigham in 1877_]

"This ignorance of the ma.s.ses leads to a misconception in two ways; the little that a scientist can do, they do not understand,--they suppose him to be G.o.dlike in his capacity, and they do not see results; they overrate him and they underrate him--they underrate his work.

"There is no observatory in this land, nor in any land, probably, of which the question is not asked, 'Are they doing anything? Why don't we hear from them? They should make discoveries, they should publish.'

"The one observation made at Greenwich on the planet Neptune was not published until after a century or more--it was recorded as a star. The observation had to wait a hundred years, about, before the time had come when that evening's work should bear fruit; but it was good, faithful work, and its time came.

"Kepler was years in pa.s.sing from one of his laws to another, while the school-boy, to-day, rattles off the three as if they were born of one breath.

"The scientist should be free to pursue his investigations. He cannot be a scientist and a school-master. If he pursues his science in all his intervals from his cla.s.s-work, his cla.s.ses suffer on account of his engrossments; if he devotes himself to his students, science suffers; and yet we all go on, year after year, trying to work the two fields together, and they need different culture and different implements.

"1878. In the eclipse of this year, the dark shadow fell first on the United States thirty-eight degrees west of Washington, and moved towards the south-east, a circle of darkness one hundred and sixteen miles in diameter; circle overlapping circle of darkness until it could be mapped down like a belt.

"The mapping of the dark shadow, with its limitations of one hundred and sixteen miles, lay across the country from Montana, through Colorado, northern and eastern Texas, and entered the Gulf of Mexico between Galveston and New Orleans. This was the region of total eclipse. Looking along this dark strip on the map, each astronomer selected his bit of darkness on which to locate the light of science.

"But for the distance from the large cities of the country, Colorado seemed to be a most favorable part of the shadow; it was little subject to storms, and reputed to be enjoyable in climate and abundant in hospitality.

"My party chose Denver, Col. I had a friend who lived in Denver, and she was visiting me. I sought her at once, and with fear and trembling asked, 'Have you a bit of land behind your house in Denver where I could put up a small telescope?' 'Six hundred miles,' was the laconic reply!

"I felt that the hospitality of the Rocky mountains was at my feet.

s.p.a.ce and time are so unconnected! For an observation which would last two minutes forty seconds, I was offered six hundred miles, after a journey of thousands.

"A journey from Boston to Denver makes one hopeful for the future of our country. We had hour after hour and day after day of railroad travel, over level, unbroken land on which cattle fed unprotected, summer and winter, and which seemed to implore the traveller to stay and to accept its richness. It must be centuries before the now unpeopled land of western Kansas and Colorado can be crowded.

"We started from Boston a party of two; at Cincinnati a third joined us; at Kansas City we came upon a fourth who was ready to fall into our ranks, and at Denver two more awaited us; so we were a party of six--'All good women and true.'

"All along the road it had been evident that the country was roused to a knowledge of the coming eclipse; we overheard remarks about it; small telescopes travelled with us, and our landlord at Kansas City, when I asked him to take care of a chronometer, said he had taken care of fifty of them in the previous fortnight. Our party had three telescopes and one chronometer.

"We had travelled so comfortably all along the Santa Fe road, from Kansas City to Pueblo, that we had forgotten the possibility of other railroad annoyances than those of heat and dust until we reached Pueblo.

At Pueblo all seemed to change. We left the Santa Fe road and entered upon that of the Rio Grande.

"Which road was to blame, it is not for me to say, but there was trouble at once about our 'round-trip ticket.' That settled, we supposed all was right.

"In sending out telescopes so far as from Boston to Denver, I had carefully taken out the gla.s.ses, and packed them in my trunks. I carried the chronometer in my hand.

"It was only five hours' travel from Pueblo to Denver, and we went on to that city. The trunks, for some unexplained reason, or for no reason at all, chose to remain at Pueblo.

"One telescope-tube reached Denver when we did; but a telescope-tube is of no value without gla.s.ses. We learned that there was a war between the two railroads which unite at Pueblo, and war, no matter where or when it occurs, means ignorance and stupidity.

"The unit of measure of value which the railroad man believes in is entirely different from that in which the scientist rests his faith.

"A war between two railroads seemed very small compared with two minutes forty seconds of observation of a total eclipse. One was terrestrial, the other cosmic.

"It was Wednesday when we reached Denver. The eclipse was to occur the following Monday.

"We haunted the telegraph-rooms, and sent imploring messages. We placed ourselves at the station, and watched the trains as they tossed out their freight; we listened to every express-wagon which pa.s.sed our door without stopping, and just as we were trying to find if a telescope could be hired or bought in Denver, the gla.s.ses arrived.

"It was now Friday; we must put up tents and telescopes, and test the gla.s.ses.

"It rained hard on Friday--nothing could be done. It rained harder on Sat.u.r.day. It rained hardest of all on Sunday, and hail mingled with the rain. But Monday morning was clear and bright. It was strange enough to find that we might camp anywhere around Denver. Our hostess suggested to us to place ourselves on 'McCullough's Addition.' In New York or Boston, if I were about to camp on private grounds I should certainly ask permission. In the far West you choose your spot of ground, you dig post-holes and you pitch tents, and you set up telescopes and inhabit the land; and then the owner of the land comes to you, and asks if he may not put up a fence for you, to keep off intruders, and the nearest residents come to you and offer aid of any kind.

"Our camping-place was near the house occupied by sisters of charity, and the black-robed, sweet-faced women came out to offer us the refreshing cup of tea and the new-made bread.

"All that we needed was 's.p.a.ce,' and of that there was plenty.

"Our tents being up and the telescopes mounted, we had time to look around at the view. The s.p.a.ce had the unlimitedness that we usually connect with sea and sky. Our tents were on the slope of a hill, at the foot of which we were about six thousand feet above the sea. The plain was three times as high as the hills of the Hudson-river region, and there arose on the south, almost from west to east, the peaks upon peaks of the Rocky mountains. One needs to live upon such a plateau for weeks, to take in the grandeur of the panorama.

"It is always difficult to teach the man of the people that natural phenomena belong as much to him as to scientific people. Camping parties who put up telescopes are always supposed to be corporations with particular privileges, and curious lookers-on gather around, and try to enter what they consider a charmed circle. We were remarkably free from specialists of this kind. Camping on the south-west slope of the hill, we were hidden on the north and east, and another party which chose the brow of the hill was much more attractive to the crowd. Our good serving-man was told to send away the few strollers who approached; even our friends from the city were asked to remove beyond the reach of voice.

"There is always some one to be found in every gathering who will not submit to law. At the time of the total eclipse in Iowa, in 1869, there pa.s.sed in and out among our telescopes and observers an unknown, closely veiled woman. The remembrance of that occasion never comes to my mind without the accompaniment of a fluttering green veil.

"This time it was a man. How he came among us and why he remained, no one can say. Each one supposed that the others knew, and that there was good reason for his presence. If I was under the tent, wiping gla.s.ses, he stood beside me; if the photographer wished to make a picture of the party, this man came to the front; and when I asked the servant to send off the half-vagrant boys and girls who stood gazing at us, this man came up and said to me in a confidential tone, 'They do not understand the sacredness of the occasion, and the fineness of the conditions.'

There was something regal in his audacity, but he was none the less a tramp.

"Persons who observe an eclipse of the sun always try to do the impossible. They seem to consider it a solemn duty to see the first contact of sun and moon. The moon, when seen in the daytime, looks like a small faint cloud; as it approaches the sun it becomes wholly unseen; and an observer tries to see when this unseen object touches the glowing disc of the sun.

"When we look at any other object than the sun, we stimulate our vision.

A good observer will remain in the dark for a short time before he makes a delicate observation on a faint star, and will then throw a cap over his head to keep out strong lights.

"When we look at the sun, we at once try to deaden its light. We protect our eyes by dark gla.s.ses--the less of sunlight we can get the better. We calculate exactly at what point the moon will touch the sun, and we watch that point only. The exact second by the chronometer when the figure of the moon touches that of the sun, is always noted. It is not only valuable for the determination of longitude, but it is a check on our knowledge of the moon's motions. Therefore, we try for the impossible.

"One of our party, a young lady from California, was placed at the chronometer. She was to count aloud the seconds, to which the three others were to listen. Two others, one a young woman from Missouri, who brought with her a fine telescope, and another from Ohio, besides myself, stood at the three telescopes. A fourth, from Illinois, was stationed to watch general effects, and one special artist, pencil in hand, to sketch views.

"Absolute silence was imposed upon the whole party a few minutes before each phenomenon.

"Of course we began full a minute too soon, and the constrained position was irksome enough, for even time is relative, and the minute of suspense is longer than the hour of satisfaction. [Footnote: As the computed time for the first contact drew near, the breath of the counter grew short, and the seconds were almost gasped and threatened to become inaudible, when Miss Mitch.e.l.l, without moving her eye from the tube of the telescope, took up the counting, and continued until the young lady recovered herself, which she did immediately.]

"The moon, so white in the sky, becomes densely black when it is closely ranging with the sun, and it shows itself as a black notch on the burning disc when the eclipse begins.

"Each observer made her record in silence, and then we turned and faced one another, with record in hand--we differed more than a second; it was a large difference.

"Between first contact and totality there was more than an hour, and we had little to do but look at the beautiful scenery and watch the slow motion of a few clouds, on a height which was cloud-land to dwellers by the sea.

"Our photographer begged us to keep our positions while he made a picture of us. The only value to the picture is the record that it preserves of the parallelism of the three telescopes. You would say it was stiff and unnatural, did you not know that it was the ordering of Nature herself--they all point to the centre of the solar system.

"As totality approached, all again took their positions. The corona, which is the 'glory' seen around the sun, was visible at least thirteen minutes before totality; each of the party took a look at this, and then all was silent, only the count, on and on, of the young woman at the chronometer. When totality came, even that ceased.