The Reminiscences of an Astronomer Part 25

In the ordinary course of events, Mr. Alexander or some member of his family would have come to the door and been informed that the caller had a bundle for him. A man just awakened from a sound sleep and coming downstairs rubbing his eyes, would not be likely to ask any questions of such a messenger, but would accept the bundle and lock the door again. Then what a mess the prosecution would have been in!

Its princ.i.p.al promoter detected in collusion with a burglar in order to get possession of the doc.u.ments necessary to carry on his case!

It happened, however, that Mr. Alexander and the members of his household all slept the sleep of the just and did not hear the bell.

The patience of the policeman was exhausted and the burglar was arrested and lodged in jail, where he was kept for several months.

Public curiosity to hear the burglar's story was brought to a high pitch, but never gratified. Before the case came to trial the prisoner was released on straw bail and never again found.

I do not think the bottom facts, especially those connected with the anonymous letter, were ever brought to light. So every one was left to form his own theory of what has since been known as the "Safe Burglary Conspiracy."

What seems at present the fashionable way of looking at the facts is this: Shepherd was the man who planned the beautiful Washington of to-day, and who carried out his project with unexampled energy until he was stopped through the clamor of citizens who did not want to see things go ahead so fast. Other people took the work up, but they only carried out Shepherd's ideas. The latter, therefore, should have all the credit due to the founder of the new Washington.

The story has always seemed to me most interesting as an example of the way in which public judgment of men and things is likely to be influenced. Public sentiment during the thirty years which have since elapsed has undergone such a revolution in favor of Shepherd that a very likely outcome will be a monument to commemorate his work.

But it is worth while to notice the mental processes by which the public now reaches this conclusion. It is the familiar and ordinarily correct method of putting this and that together.

_This_ is one of the most beautiful cities in the United States, of which Americans generally are proud when they pay it a visit.

_That_ is the recollection of the man who commenced the work of transforming an unsightly, straggling, primitive town into the present Washington, and was condemned for what he did.

These two considerations form the basis of the conclusion, all intermediate details dropping out of sight and memory. The reckless maladministration of the epoch, making it absolutely necessary to introduce a new system, has no place in the picture.

There is also a moral to the story, which is more instructive than pleasant. The actors in the case no doubt believed that if they set about their work in a conservative and law-abiding way, spending only as much money as could be raised, Congress would never come to their help. So they determined to force the game, by creating a situation which would speedily lead to the correct solution of the problem. I do not think any observant person will contest the proposition that had Shepherd gone about his work and carried it to a successful conclusion in a peaceable and law-abiding way,--had he done nothing to excite public attention except wisely and successfully to administer a great public work,--his name would now have been as little remembered in connection with what he did as we remember those of Ketchem, Phelps, and the other men who repaired the wreck he left and made the city what it is to-day.

In my mind one question dominates all others growing out of the case: What will be the moral effect on our children of holding up for their imitation such methods as I have described?

XIII

MISCELLANEA

If the "Great Star-Catalogue Case" is not surrounded with such mystery as would ent.i.tle it to a place among _causes celebres_, it may well be so cla.s.sed on account of the novelty of the questions at issue.

It affords an instructive example of the possibility of cases in which strict justice cannot be done through the established forms of legal procedure. It is also of scientific interest because, although the question was a novel one to come before a court, it belongs to a cla.s.s which every leader in scientific investigation must constantly encounter in meting out due credit to his a.s.sistants.

The plaintiff, Christian H. F. Peters, was a Dane by birth, and graduated at the University of Berlin in 1836. During the earlier years of his manhood he was engaged in the trigonometrical survey of the kingdom of Naples, where, for a time, he had charge of an observatory or some other astronomical station. It is said that, like many other able European youth of the period, he was implicated in the revolution of 1848, and had to flee the kingdom in consequence.

Five years later, he came to the United States. Here his first patron was Dr. B. A. Gould, who procured for him first a position on the Coast Survey, and then one as his a.s.sistant at the Dudley Observatory in Albany. He was soon afterward appointed professor of astronomy and director of the Litchfield Observatory at Hamilton College, where he spent the remaining thirty years of his life.

He was a man of great learning, not only in subjects pertaining to astronomy, but in ancient and modern languages. The means at his disposal were naturally of the slenderest kind; but he was the discoverer of some forty asteroids, and devoted himself to various astronomical works and researches with great ability.

Of his personality it may be said that it was extremely agreeable so long as no important differences arose. What it would be in such a case can be judged by what follows. Those traits of character which in men like him may be smoothed down to a greater or less extent by marital discipline were, in the absence of any such agency, maintained in all their strength to his latest years.

The defendant, Charles A. Borst, was a graduate of the college and had been a favorite pupil of Peters. He was a man of extraordinary energy and working capacity, ready to take hold in a business-like way of any problem presented to him, but not an adept at making problems for himself. His power of a.s.similating learning was unusually developed; and this, combined with orderly business habits, made him a most effective and valuable a.s.sistant. The terms of his employment were of the first importance in the case. Mr. Litchfield of New York was the patron of the observatory; he had given the trustees of Hamilton College a capital for its support, which sufficed to pay the small salary of the director and some current expenses, and he also, when the latter needed an a.s.sistant, made provision for his employment.

It appears that, in the case of Borst, Peters frequently paid his salary for considerable periods at a time, which sums were afterward reimbursed to him by Mr. Litchfield.

I shall endeavor to state the most essential facts involved as they appear from a combination of the sometimes widely different claims of the two parties, with the hope of showing fairly what they were, but without expecting to satisfy a partisan of either side. Where an important difference of statement is irreconcilable, I shall point it out.

In his observations of asteroids Peters was continually obliged to search through the pages of astronomical literature to find whether the stars he was using in observation had ever been catalogued.

He long thought that it would be a good piece of work to search all the astronomical journals and miscellaneous collections of observations with a view of making a complete catalogue of the positions of the thousands of stars which they contained, and publishing it in a single volume for the use of astronomers situated as he was. The work of doing this was little more than one of routine search and calculation, which any well-trained youth could take up; but it was naturally quite without the power of Peters to carry it through with his own hand. He had employed at least one former a.s.sistant on the work, Professor John G. Porter, but very little progress was made. Now, however, he had a man with the persistence and working capacity necessary to carry out the plan.

There was an irreconcilable difference between the two parties as to the terms on which Borst went to work. According to the latter, Peters suggested to him the credit which a young man would gain as one of the motives for taking up the job. But plaintiff denied that he had done anything more than order him to do it. He did not, however, make it clear why an a.s.sistant at the Litchfield Observatory should be officially ordered to do a piece of work for the use of astronomy generally, and having no special connection with the Litchfield Observatory.

However this may be, Borst went vigorously to work, repeating all the calculations which had been made by Peters and former a.s.sistants, with a view of detecting errors, and took the work home with him in order that his sisters might make a great ma.s.s of supplementary calculations which, though not involved in the original plan, would be very conducive to the usefulness of the result. One or two of these bright young ladies worked for about a year at the job.

How far Peters was privy to what they did was not clear; according to his claim he did not authorize their employment to do anything but copy the catalogue.

By the joint efforts of the a.s.sistant and his two sisters, working mostly or entirely at their own home, the work was brought substantially to a conclusion about the beginning of 1888.

Borst then reported the completion to his chief and submitted a proposed t.i.tle-page, which represented that the work was performed by Charles A. Borst under the direction of Christian H. F. Peters, Professor of Astronomy, etc. According to Borst's account, Peters tore up the paper, opened the stove door, put the fragments into the fire, and then turned on the a.s.sistant with the simple order, "Bring me the catalogue!"

This was refused, and a suit in replevin was immediately inst.i.tuted by Peters. The ablest counsel were engaged on both sides. That of the plaintiff was Mr. Elihu Root, of New York, afterward Secretary of War, one of the leading members of the New York bar, and well known as an active member of the reform branch of the Republican party of that city. For the defendant was the law firm of an ex-senator of the United States, the Messrs. Kernan of Utica.

I think the taking of evidence and the hearing of arguments occupied more than a week. One claim of the defendant would, if accepted, have brought the suit to a speedy end. Peters was an employee of the corporation of Hamilton College, and by the terms of his appointment all his work at the Litchfield Observatory belonged to that inst.i.tution. Borst was summoned into the case as an official employee of the Litchfield Observatory. Therefore the corporation of the college was the only authority which had power to bring the suit.

But this point was disposed of by a decision of the judge that it was not reasonable, in view of the low salary received by the plaintiff, to deprive him of the right to the creations of his own talent.

He did not, however, apply this principle of legal interpretation to the case of the defendant, and not only found for the plaintiff, but awarded damages based on the supposed value of the work, including, if I understand the case aright, the value of the work done by the young ladies. It would seem, however, that in officially perfecting the details of his decision he left it a little indefinite as to what papers the plaintiff was ent.i.tled to, it being very difficult to describe in detail papers many of which he had never seen.

Altogether it may be feared that the decision treated the catalogue much as the infant was treated by the decision of Solomon.

However this might he, the decision completely denied any right of the defendant in the work. This feature of it I thought very unjust, and published in a Utica paper a review of the case in terms not quite so judicial as I ought to have chosen. I should have thought such a criticism quite a breach of propriety, and therefore would never have ventured upon it but for an eminent example then fresh in my mind.

Shortly after the Supreme Court of the United States uttered its celebrated decision upholding the const.i.tutionality of the Legal Tender Act, I happened to be conversing at an afternoon reception with one of the judges, Gray, who had sustained the decision.

Mr. George Bancroft, the historian, stepped up, and quite surprised me by expressing to the judge in quite vigorous language his strong dissent from the decision. He soon afterward published a pamphlet reviewing it adversely. I supposed that what Mr. Bancroft might do with a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, a humbler individual might be allowed to do with the decision of a local New York judge.

The defense appealed the case to a higher court of three judges, where the finding of the lower court was sustained by a majority of two to one. It was then carried to the Court of Appeals, the highest in the State. Here the decision was set aside on what seemed to me the common sense ground that the court had ignored the rights of the defendant in the case, who certainly had some, and it must therefore be remanded for a new trial.

Meantime Peters had died; and it is painful to think that his death may have been accelerated by the annoyances growing out of the suit.

One morning, in the summer of 1890, he was found dead on the steps of his little dwelling, having apparently fallen in a fit of apoplexy or heart failure as he was on his way to the observatory the night before. His heirs had no possible object in pushing the suit; probably his entire little fortune was absorbed in the attendant expenses.

When the difference with Borst was first heard of it was, I think, proposed to Peters by several of his friends, including myself, that the matter should be submitted to an arbitration of astronomers.

But he would listen to nothing of the sort. He was determined to enforce his legal rights by legal measures. A court of law was, in such a case, at an enormous disadvantage, as compared with an astronomical board of arbitration. To the latter all the circ.u.mstances would have been familiar and simple, while the voluminous evidence, elucidated as it was by the arguments of counsel on the two sides, failed to completely enlighten the court on the points at issue. One circ.u.mstance will ill.u.s.trate this.

Some allusion was made during the trial to Peters's work while he was abroad, in investigating the various ma.n.u.scripts of the Almagest of Ptolemy and preparing a commentary and revised edition of Ptolemy's Catalogue of Stars. This would have been an extremely important and original work, most valuable in the history of ancient astronomy.

But the judge got it mixed up in his mind with the work before the court, and actually supposed that Peters spent his time in Europe in searching ancient ma.n.u.scripts to get material for the catalogue in question. He also attributed great importance to the conception of the catalogue, forgetting that, to use the simile of a writer in the "New York Evening Post," such a conception was of no more value than the conception of a railroad from one town to another by a man who had no capital to build it. No original investigation was required on one side or the other. It was simply a huge piece of work done by a young man with help from his sisters, suggested by Peters, and now and then revised by him in its details. It seemed to me that the solution offered by Borst was eminently proper, and I was willing to say so, probably at the expense of Peters's friendship, on which I set a high value.

I have always regarded the work on Ptolemy's catalogue of stars, to which allusion has just been made, as the most important Peters ever undertook. It comprised a critical examination and comparison of all the ma.n.u.scripts of the Almagest in the libraries of Europe, or elsewhere, whether in Arabic or other languages, with a view of learning what light might be thrown on the doubtful questions growing out of Ptolemy's work. At the Litchfield Observatory I had an opportunity of examining the work, especially the extended commentaries on special points, and was so impressed by the learning shown in the research as to express a desire for its speedy completion and publication. In fact, Peters had already made one or more communications to the National Academy of Sciences on the subject, which were supposed to be equivalent to presenting the work to the academy for publication. But before the academy put in any claim for the ma.n.u.script, Mr. E. B. k.n.o.bel of London, a well-known member of the Royal Astronomical Society, wrote to Peters's executors, stating that he was a collaborator with Peters in preparing the work, and as such had a claim to it, and wished to complete it. He therefore asked that the papers should be sent to him. This was done, but during the twelve years which have since elapsed, nothing more has been heard of the work. No one, so far as I know, ever heard of Peters's making any allusion to Mr. k.n.o.bel or any other collaborator.

He seems to have always spoken of the work as exclusively his own.

Among the psychological phenomena I have witnessed, none has appeared to me more curious than a susceptibility of certain minds to become imbued with a violent antipathy to the theory of gravitation.

The anti-gravitation crank, as he is commonly called, is a regular part of the astronomer's experience. He is, however, only one of a large and varied cla.s.s who occupy themselves with what an architect might consider the drawing up of plans and specifications for a universe. This is, no doubt, quite a harmless occupation; but the queer part of it is the seeming belief of the architects that the actual universe has been built on their plans, and runs according to the laws which they prescribe for it. Ether, atoms, and nebulae are the raw material of their trade. Men of otherwise sound intellect, even college graduates and lawyers, sometimes engage in this business.

I have often wondered whether any of these men proved that, in all the common schools of New York, the power which conjugates the verbs comes, through some invisible conduit in the earth, from the falls of Niagara. This would be quite like many of the theories propounded.

Babbage's "Budget of Paradoxes" is a goodly volume descriptive of efforts of this sort. It was supplemented a year or two ago by a most excellent and readable article on eccentric literature, by Mr. John Fiske, which appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly." Here the author discussed the subject so well that I do not feel like saying much about it, beyond giving a little of my own experience.

Naturally the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution was, and I presume still is, the great authority to which these men send their productions.

It was generally a rule of Professor Henry always to notice these communications and try to convince the correspondents of their fallacies. Many of the papers were referred to me; but a little experience showed that it was absolutely useless to explain anything to these "paradoxers." Generally their first communication was exceedingly modest in style, being evidently designed to lead on the unwary person to whom it was addressed. Moved to sympathy with so well-meaning but erring an inquirer, I would point out wherein his reasoning was deficient or his facts at fault. Back would come a thunderbolt demonstrating my incapacity to deal with the subject in terms so strong that I could not have another word to say.

The American a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science was another attraction for such men. About thirty years ago there appeared at one of its meetings a man from New Jersey who was as much incensed against the theory of gravitation as if it had been the source of all human woe. He got admission to the meetings, as almost any one can, but the paper he proposed to read was refused by the committee.

He watched his chance, however, and when discussion on some paper was invited, he got up and began with the words, "It seems to me that the astronomers of the present day have gravitation on the brain."

This was the beginning of an impa.s.sioned oration which went on in an unbroken torrent until he was put down by a call for the next paper.

But he got his chance at last. A meeting of Section Q was called; what this section was the older members will recall and the reader may be left to guess. A programme of papers had been prepared, and on it appeared Mr. Joseph Treat, on Gravitation. Mr. Treat got up with great alacrity, and, amid the astonishment and laughter of all proceeded to read his paper with the utmost seriousness.

I remember a visit from one of these men with great satisfaction, because, apparently, he was an exception to the rule in being amenable to reason. I was sitting in my office one morning when a modest-looking gentleman opened the door and looked in.

"I would like to see Professor Newcomb."