The Uses of Astronomy Part 3

In an exclusively scientific treatment of this subject, an inquiry into its utilitarian relations would be superfluous--even wearisome.

But on an occasion like the present, you will not, perhaps, think it out of place if I briefly answer the question, What is the use of an observatory, and what benefit may be expected from the operations of such an establishment in a community like ours?

1. In the first place, then, we derive from the observations of the heavenly bodies which are made at an observatory, our only adequate measures of time, and our only means of comparing the time of one place with the time of another. Our artificial time-keepers--clocks, watches, and chronometers--however ingeniously contrived and admirably fabricated, are but a transcript, so to say, of the celestial motions, and would be of no value without the means of regulating them by observation. It is impossible for them, under any circ.u.mstances, to escape the imperfection of all machinery the work of human hands; and the moment we remove with our time-keeper east or west, it fails us. It will keep home time alone, like the fond traveler who leaves his heart behind him. The artificial instrument is of incalculable utility, but must itself be regulated by the eternal clock-work of the skies.

RELATIONS BETWEEN NATURAL PHENOMENA AND DAILY LIFE.

This single consideration is sufficient to show how completely the daily business of life is affected and controlled by the heavenly bodies.

It is they--and not our main-springs, our expansion balances, and our compensation pendulums--which give us our time. To reverse the line of Pope:

"'Tis with our watches as our judgments;--none Go just alike, but each believes his own."

But for all the kindreds and tribes and tongues of men--each upon their own meridian--from the Arctic pole to the equator, from the equator to the Antarctic pole, the eternal sun strikes twelve at noon, and the glorious constellations, far up in the everlasting belfries of the skies, chime twelve at midnight;--twelve for the pale student over his flickering lamp; twelve amid the flaming glories of Orion's belt, if he crosses the meridian at that fated hour; twelve by the weary couch of languishing humanity; twelve in the star-paved courts of the Empyrean; twelve for the heaving tides of the ocean; twelve for the weary arm of labor; twelve for the toiling brain; twelve for the watching, waking, broken heart; twelve for the meteor which blazes for a moment and expires; twelve for the comet whose period is measured by centuries; twelve for every substantial, for every imaginary thing, which exists in the sense, the intellect, or the fancy, and which the speech or thought of man, at the given meridian, refers to the lapse of time.

Not only do we resort to the observation of the heavenly bodies for the means of regulating and rectifying our clocks, but the great divisions of day and month and year are derived from the same source. By the const.i.tution of our nature, the elements of our existence are closely connected with celestial times. Partly by his physical organization, partly by the experience of the race from the dawn of creation, man as he is, and the times and seasons of the heavenly bodies, are part and parcel of one system. The first great division of time, the day-night (nychthemerum), for which we have no precise synonym in our language, with its primal alternation of waking and sleeping, of labor and rest, is a vital condition of the existence of such a creature as man. The revolution of the year, with its various incidents of summer and winter, and seed-time and harvest, is not less involved in our social, material, and moral progress. It is true that at the poles, and on the equator, the effects of these revolutions are variously modified or wholly disappear; but as the necessary consequence, human life is extinguished at the poles, and on the equator attains only a languid or feverish development. Those lat.i.tudes only in which the great motions and cardinal positions of the earth exert a mean influence, exhibit man in the harmonious expansion of his powers. The lunar period, which lies at the foundation of the _month_, is less vitally connected with human existence and development; but is proved by the experience of every age and race to be eminently conducive to the progress of civilization and culture.

But indispensable as are these heavenly measures of time to our life and progress, and obvious as are the phenomena on which they rest, yet owing to the circ.u.mstance that, in the economy of nature, the day, the month, and the year are not exactly commensurable, some of the most difficult questions in practical astronomy are those by which an accurate division of time, applicable to the various uses of life, is derived from the observation of the heavenly bodies. I have no doubt that, to the Supreme Intelligence which created and rules the universe, there is a harmony hidden to us in the numerical relation to each other of days, months, and years; but in our ignorance of that harmony, their practical adjustment to each other is a work of difficulty. The great embarra.s.sment which attended the reformation of the calendar, after the error of the Julian period had, in the lapse of centuries, reached ten (or rather twelve) days, sufficiently ill.u.s.trates this remark. It is most true that scientific difficulties did not form the chief obstacle.

Having been proposed under the auspices of the Roman pontiff, the Protestant world, for a century and more, rejected the new style.

It was in various places the subject of controversy, collision, and bloodshed.[A] It was not adopted in England till nearly two centuries after its introduction at Rome; and in the country of Struve and the Pulkova equatorial, they persist at the present day in adding eleven minutes and twelve seconds to the length of the tropical year.

[Footnote A: Stern's "_Himmelskunde_," p. 72.]

GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.

2. The second great practical use of an Astronomical Observatory is connected with the science of geography. The first page of the history of our Continent declares this truth. Profound meditation on the sphericity of the earth was one of the main reasons which led Columbus to undertake his momentous voyage; and his thorough acquaintance with the astronomical science of that day was, in his own judgment, what enabled him to overcome the almost innumerable obstacles which attended its prosecution.[A] In return, I find that Copernicus in the very commencement of his immortal work _De Revolutionibus...o...b..um Coelestium_, fol. 2, appeals to the discovery of America as completing the demonstration of the sphericity of the earth. Much of our knowledge of the figure, size, density, and position of the earth, as a member of the solar system, is derived from this science; and it furnishes us the means of performing the most important operations of practical geography. Lat.i.tude and longitude, which lie at the basis of all descriptive geography, are determined by observation. No map deserves the name, on which the position of important points has not been astronomically determined. Some even of our most important political and administrative arrangements depend upon the cooperation of this science.

Among these I may mention the land system of the United States, and the determination of the boundaries of the country. I believe that till it was done by the Federal Government, a uniform system of mathematical survey had never in any country been applied to an extensive territory.

Large grants and sales of public land took place before the Revolution, and in the interval between the peace and the adoption of the Const.i.tution; but the limits of these grants and sales were ascertained by sensible objects, by trees, streams, rocks, hills, and by reference to adjacent portions of territory, previously surveyed. The uncertainty of boundaries thus defined, was a never-failing source of litigation.

Large tracts of land in the Western country, granted by Virginia under this old system of special and local survey, were covered with conflicting claims; and the controversies to which they gave rise formed no small part of the business of the Federal Court after its organization. But the adoption of the present land-system brought order out of chaos. The entire public domain is now scientifically surveyed before it is offered for sale; it is laid off into ranges, townships, sections, and smaller divisions, with unerring accuracy, resting on the foundation of base and meridian lines; and I have been informed that under this system, scarce a case of contested location and boundary has ever presented itself in court. The General Land Office contains maps and plans, in which every quarter-section of the public land is laid down with mathematical precision. The superficies of half a continent is thus transferred in miniature to the bureaus of Washington; while the local Land Offices contain transcripts of these plans, copies of which are furnished to the individual purchaser. When we consider the tide of population annually flowing into the public domain, and the immense importance of its efficient and economical administration, the utility of this application of Astronomy will be duly estimated.

[Footnote A: Humboldt, _Histotre de la Geographie_, &c., Tom. 1, page 71.]

I will here venture to repeat an anecdote, which I heard lately from a son of the late Hon. Timothy Pickering. Mr. Octavius Pickering, on behalf of his father, had applied to Mr. David Putnam of Marietta, to act as his legal adviser, with respect to certain land claims in the Virginia Military district, in the State of Ohio. Mr. Putnam declined the agency. He had had much to do with business of that kind, and found it beset with endless litigation. "I have never," he added, "succeeded but in a single case, and that was a location and survey made by General Washington before the Revolution; and I am not acquainted with any surveys, except those made by him, but what have been litigated."

At this moment, a most important survey of the coast of the United States is in progress, an operation of the utmost consequence, in reference to the commerce, navigation, and hydrography of the country.

The entire work, I need scarce say, is one of practical astronomy. The scientific establishment which we this day inaugurate is looked to for important cooperation in this great undertaking, and will no doubt contribute efficiently to its prosecution.

Astronomical observation furnishes by far the best means of defining the boundaries of States, especially when the lines are of great length and run through unsettled countries. Natural indications, like rivers and mountains, however indistinct in appearance, are in practice subject to unavoidable error. By the treaty of 1783, a boundary was established between the United States and Great Britain, depending chiefly on the course of rivers and highlands dividing the waters which flow into the Atlantic Ocean from those which flow into the St. Lawrence. It took twenty years to find out which river was the true St. Croix, that being the starting point. England then having made the extraordinary discovery that the Bay of Fundy is not a part of the Atlantic Ocean, forty years more were pa.s.sed in the unsuccessful attempt to re-create the highlands which this strange theory had annihilated; and just as the two countries were on the verge of a war, the controversy was settled by compromise.

Had the boundary been accurately described by lines of lat.i.tude and longitude, no dispute could have arisen. No dispute arose as to the boundary between the United States and Spain, and her successor, Mexico, where it runs through untrodden deserts and over pathless mountains along the 42d degree of lat.i.tude. The ident.i.ty of rivers may be disputed, as in the case of the St. Croix; the course of mountain chains is too broad for a dividing line; the division of streams, as experience has shown, is uncertain; but a degree of lat.i.tude is written on the heavenly sphere, and nothing but an observation is required to read the record.

QUESTIONS OF BOUNDARY.

But scientific elements, like sharp instruments, must be handled with scientific accuracy. A part of our boundary between the British Provinces ran upon the forty-fifth degree of lat.i.tude; and about forty years ago, an expensive fortress was commenced by the government of the United States, at Rouse's Point, on Lake Champlain, on a spot intended to be just within our limits. When a line came to be more carefully surveyed, the fortress turned out to be on the wrong side of the line; we had been building an expensive fortification for our neighbor. But in the general compromises of the Treaty of Washington by the Webster and Ashburton Treaty in 1842, the fortification was left within our limits.[A]

[Footnote A: Webster's Works. Vol. V., 110, 115.]

Errors still more serious had nearly resulted, a few years since, in a war with Mexico. By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in 1848, the boundary line between the United States and that country was in part described by reference to the town of El Paso, as laid down on a specified map of the United States, of which a copy was appended to the treaty. This boundary was to be surveyed and run by a joint commission of men of science. It soon appeared that errors of two or three degrees existed in the projection of the map. Its lines of lat.i.tude and longitude did not conform to the topography of the region; so that it became impossible to execute the text of the treaty. The famous Mesilla Valley was a part of the debatable ground; and the sum of $10,000,000, paid to the Mexican Government for that and for an additional strip of territory on the southwest, was the smart-money which expiated the inaccuracy of the map--the necessary result, perhaps, of the want of good materials for its construction.

It became my official duty in London, a few years ago, to apply to the British Government for an authentic statement of their claim to jurisdiction over New Zealand. The official _Gazette_ for the 2d of October, 1840, was sent me from the Foreign Office, as affording the desired information. This number of the _Gazette_ contained the proclamations issued by the Lieutenant Governor of New Zealand, "in pursuance of the instructions he received from the Marquis of Normanby, one of Her Majesty's princ.i.p.al Secretaries of State," a.s.serting the jurisdiction of his government over the islands of New Zealand, and declaring them to extend "from 34 30' North to 47 10' South lat.i.tude."

It is scarcely necessary to say that south lat.i.tude was intended in both instances. This error of 69 of lat.i.tude, which would have extended the claim of British jurisdiction over the whole breadth of the Pacific, had, apparently, escaped the notice of that government.

COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION.

It would be easy to multiply ill.u.s.trations in proof of the great practical importance of accurate scientific designations, drawn from astronomical observations, in various relations connected with boundaries, surveys, and other geographical purposes; but I must hasten to

3. A third important department, in which the services rendered by astronomy are equally conspicuous. I refer to commerce and navigation.

It is mainly owing to the results of astronomical observation, that modern commerce has attained such a vast expansion, compared with that of the ancient world. I have already reminded you that accurate ideas in this respect contributed materially to the conception in the mind of Columbus of his immortal enterprise, and to the practical success with which it was conducted. It was mainly his skill in the use of astronomical instruments--imperfect as they were--which enabled him, in spite of the bewildering variation of the compa.s.s, to find his way across the ocean.

With the progress of the true system of the universe toward general adoption, the problem of finding the longitude at sea presented itself.

This was the avowed object of the foundation of the observatory at Greenwich;[A] and no one subject has received more of the attention of astronomers, than those investigations of the lunar theory on which the requisite tables of the navigator are founded. The pathways of the ocean are marked out in the sky above. The eternal lights of the heavens are the only Pharos whose beams never fail, which no tempest can shake from its foundation. Within my recollection, it was deemed a necessary qualification for the master and the mate of a merchant-ship, and even for a prime hand, to be able to "work a lunar," as it was called. The improvements in the chronometer have in practice, to a great extent, superseded this laborious operation; but observation remains, and unquestionably will for ever remain, the only dependence for ascertaining the ship's time and deducting the longitude from the comparison of that time with the chronometer.

[Footnote A: Grant's _Physical Astronomy_, p. 460.]

It may, perhaps, be thought that astronomical science is brought already to such a state of perfection that nothing more is to be desired, or at least that nothing more is attainable, in reference to such practicable applications as I have described. This, however, is an idea which generous minds will reject, in this, as in every other department of human knowledge. In astronomy, as in every thing else, the discoveries already made, theoretical or practical, instead of exhausting the science, or putting a limit to its advancement, do but furnish the means and instruments of further progress. I have no doubt we live on the verge of discoveries and inventions, in every department, as brilliant as any that have ever been made; that there are new truths, new facts, ready to start into recognition on every side; and it seems to me there never was an age, since the dawn of time, when men ought to be less disposed to rest satisfied with the progress already made, than the age in which we live; for there never was an age more distinguished for ingenious research, for novel result, and bold generalization.

That no further improvement is desirable in the means and methods of ascertaining the ship's place at sea, no one I think will from experience be disposed to a.s.sert. The last time I crossed the Atlantic, I walked the quarter-deck with the officer in charge of the n.o.ble vessel, on one occasion, when we were driving along before a leading breeze and under a head of steam, beneath a starless sky at midnight, at the rate certainly of ten or eleven miles an hour. There is something sublime, but approaching the terrible, in such a scene;--the rayless gloom, the midnight chill,--the awful swell of the deep,--the dismal moan of the wind through the rigging, the all but volcanic fires within the hold of the ship. I scarce know an occasion in ordinary life in which a reflecting mind feels more keenly its hopeless dependence on irrational forces beyond its own control. I asked my companion how nearly he could determine his ship's place at sea under favorable circ.u.mstances. Theoretically, he answered, I think, within a mile;--practically and usually within three or four. My next question was, how near do you think we may be to Cape Race;--that dangerous headland which pushes its iron-bound unlighted bastions from the sh.o.r.e of Newfoundland far into the Atlantic,--first landfall to the homeward-bound American vessel. We must, said he, by our last observations and reckoning, be within three or four miles of Cape Race.

A comparison of these two remarks, under the circ.u.mstances in which we were placed at the moment, brought my mind to the conclusion, that it is greatly to be wished that the means should be discovered of finding the ship's place more accurately, or that navigators would give Cape Race a little wider berth. But I do not remember that one of the steam packets between England and America was ever lost on that formidable point.

It appears to me by no means unlikely that, with the improvement of instrumental power, and of the means of ascertaining the ship's time with exactness, as great an advance beyond the present state of art and science in finding a ship's place at sea may take place, as was effected by the invention of the reflecting quadrant, the calculation of lunar tables, and the improved construction of chronometers.

BABBAGE'S DIFFERENCE MACHINE.

In the wonderful versatility of the human mind, the improvement, when made, will very probably be made by paths where it is least expected.

The great inducement to Mr. Babbage to attempt the construction of an engine by which astronomical tables could be calculated, and even printed, by mechanical means and with entire accuracy, was the errors in the requisite tables. Nineteen such errors, in point of fact, were discovered in an edition of Taylor's Logarithms printed in 1796; some of which might have led to the most dangerous results in calculating a ship's place. These nineteen errors, (of which one only was an error of the press), were pointed out in the _Nautical Almanac_ for 1832. In one of these _errata_ the seat of the error was stated to be in cosine of 14 18' 3". Subsequent examination showed that there was an error of one second in this correction; and, accordingly, in the _Nautical Almanac_ of the next year a new correction was necessary. But in making the new correction of one second, a new error was committed of ten degrees.

Instead of cosine 14 18' 2" the correction was printed cosine 4 18' 2"

making it still necessary, in some future edition of the _Nautical Almanac_, to insert an _erratum_ in an _erratum_ of the _errata_ in Taylor's logarithms.[A]

[Footnote A: Edinburgh Review, Vol. LIX., 282.]

In the hope of obviating the possibility of such errors, Mr. Babbage projected his calculating, or, as he prefers to call it, his difference machine. Although this extraordinary undertaking has been arrested, in consequence of the enormous expense attending its execution, enough has been achieved to show the mechanical possibility of constructing an engine of this kind, and even one of far higher powers, of which Mr.

Babbage has matured the conception, devised the notation, and executed the drawings--themselves an imperishable monument of the genius of the author.

I happened on one occasion to be in company with this highly distinguished man of science, whose social qualities are as pleasing as his constructive talent is marvelous, when another eminent _savant_, Count Strzelecki, just returned from his Oriental and Australian tour, observed that he found among the Chinese, a great desire to know something more of Mr. Babbage's calculating machine, and especially whether, like their own _swampan_, it could be made to go into the pocket. Mr. Babbage good-humouredly observed that, thus far, he had been very much out of pocket with it.

INCREASED COMMAND OF INSTRUMENTAL POWER.

Whatever advances may be made in astronomical science, theoretical or applied, I am strongly inclined to think that they will be made in connection with an increased command of instrumental power. The natural order in which the human mind proceeds in the acquisition of astronomical knowledge is minute and accurate observation of the phenomena of the heavens, the skillful discussion and a.n.a.lysis of these observations, and sound philosophy in generalizing the results.

In pursuing this course, however, a difficulty presented itself, which for ages proved insuperable--and which to the same extent has existed in no other science, viz.: that all the leading phenomena are in their appearance delusive. It is indeed true that in all sciences superficial observation can only lead, except by chance, to superficial knowledge; but I know of no branch in which, to the same degree as in astronomy, the great leading phenomena are the reverse of true; while they yet appeal so strongly to the senses, that men who could foretell eclipses, and who discovered the precession of the equinoxes, still believed that the earth was at rest in the center of the universe, and that all the host of heaven performed a daily revolution about it as a center.

It usually happens in scientific progress, that when a great fact is at length discovered, it approves itself at once to all competent judges.

It furnishes a solution to so many problems, and harmonizes with so many other facts,--that all the other _data_ as it were crystallize at once about it. In modern times, we have often witnessed such an impatience, so to say, of great truths, to be discovered, that it has frequently happened that they have been found out simultaneously by more than one individual; and a disputed question of priority is an event of very common occurrence. Not so with the true theory of the heavens. So complete is the deception practiced on the senses, that it failed more than once to yield to the suggestion of the truth; and it was only when the visual organs were armed with an almost preternatural instrumental power, that the great fact found admission to the human mind.