Woman in Science Part 15

That is what we think now; but the light and frivolous women who const.i.tuted the leaders of society in Mme. du Chatelet's day, and who were devoured by envy and jealousy of one who was so much their superior in intellect were not so minded. Far from sympathizing with her work, they proved to be her most virulent critics and most p.r.o.nounced enemies.

Neither Moliere nor Boileau could have heaped more ridicule on the pedantic women of their time than was meted out to the translator of the _Principia_ by certain n.o.ble dames of provincial chateaux or by distinguished habituees of prominent Parisian salons.

Thus the petulant _ennuyee_, Mme. de Stael, in a letter to her friend, Mme. du Deffand, writing of Mme. du Chatelet, who was then her guest at Sceaux, tells us that "she is now pa.s.sing in review her principles. This is a task she performs every year, else they might, perhaps, make their escape and run to such a distance that she would never be able to recover any of them. I verily believe that they are in durance vile while in her possession, as they were certainly not born with her. She does well to keep a strict watch over them."[141]

And, in her turn, Mme. du Deffand, who was wont to pose as the intimate friend of Mme. du Chatelet, did not hesitate to write and circulate a pen portrait of this friend--and that after the unhappy woman was in her grave--which for bitter reviling and brutal villification has probably never been equalled. A witty Frenchman observed of this portrait that it reminded him of an observation once made by a medical acquaintance of his concerning one of his patients: "'My friend fell ill; I attended him. He died; I dissected him.'"[142]

Among other women astronomers of the eighteenth century who deserve mention are Mme. du Pierry, the d.u.c.h.esse Louise of Saxe-Gotha, and Mme.

Hortense Lepaute.

According to Lalande, Mme. du Pierry was the first woman professor of astronomy in Paris. He dedicated to her his _Astronomie des Dames_, and incorporated in his own works many of her memoirs on astronomical subjects. She devoted much time to calculating eclipses with a view to accurately determining the motion of the moon, and was, besides, the author of numerous astronomical tables which exhibit patient research and unquestioned skill.

The d.u.c.h.esse Louise had a great reputation as a rapid and accurate computer, and was celebrated for the number and variety of her computations. Her modesty, however, prevented her from publishing anything or even having her work quoted.

Considering, however, the amount and character of her work, the most eminent woman astronomer that France has yet produced was, without doubt, Mme. Hortense Lepaute, the wife of the royal clockmaker of France. She first distinguished herself by her investigations on the oscillations of pendulums of different lengths, an account of which is to be found in her husband's valuable work, _Traite d'Horlogerie_, published in 1755.

In 1759 Lalande, who was then the Director of the Paris Observatory, engaged Mme. Lepaute and the celebrated mathematician, Clairaut, to determine the amount of the attraction of Jupiter and Saturn on Halley's comet, whose return was expected in that year. So difficult was this problem, and so numerous were the complications involved, that Lalande frankly confesses that he would not have dared to undertake its solution without Mme. Lepaute's a.s.sistance. For it necessitated calculating for every degree, and for one hundred and fifty years the distances and forces of each of the planets with reference to the comet. "It would be difficult," declares Lalande, "to realize the courage which this enterprise required, if one did not know that for more than six months we calculated from morning until night, sometimes even at meals, and that at the end of this enforced labor I was stricken by a malady which affected me during the rest of my life." Clairaut was so impressed by Mme. Lepaute's energy and skill during this time that he declared "her ardor was surprising," and he did not hesitate to call her _La savante calculatrice_--the learned computer.[143]

The eclipse of 1762 also engaged Mme. Lepaute's attention, as did also the annular eclipse of 1764. The latter was a curious phenomenon for France, as it had never before been observed. Mme. Lepaute calculated it for the whole of Europe and published a chart showing its path for every quarter of an hour. She also published another chart for Paris, in which were exhibited the different phases of the eclipse.

On the occasion of the different eclipses which she had calculated, Mme.

Lepaute recognized the advantage of having a table of parallactic angles. She accordingly prepared a very extended table of this kind which was published by the French government. Besides this table, she was the author of numerous memoirs on astronomical subjects. Among them was one embracing calculations based on all the observations which had been made on the transit of Venus in 1761.

"In 1759," again writes Lalande, "I was given charge of the _Connaissance des Temps_, a work which the Academy of Sciences published every year for the use of astronomers and navigators, the calculations for which gave occupation to several persons. I had the good fortune to find in Mme. Lepaute a co-worker without whom I should not have been able to undertake the labor required. She continued in this occupation until 1774, when another Academician a.s.sumed this laborious task. But she thereupon began work on the _Ephemeris_, of which the seventh volume in quarto, which appeared in 1774, goes to 1784, and of which the eighth, published in 1783, extends to the year 1792. In this latter volume she made, unaided, all the computations for the sun, the moon and all the planets.

"This long series of calculations finally enfeebled her eyesight, which had been excellent, and she was in the last years of her life obliged to discontinue them."[144]

In view of her extraordinary and long-continued work in her chosen specialty, M. Lalande was quite warranted in stating that "Mme. Lepaute is the only woman in France who has acquired veritable knowledge in astronomy; and she is now replaced only by Mme. du Pierry, who has published divers astronomical calculations, and who has deserved to have dedicated to her _L'Astronomie des Dames_, which appeared in 1786."

It is gratifying to know that the beautiful j.a.pan Rose--originally called _Pautia_, but changed to _Hortensia_ by Jussieu--was named after this distinguished woman. It is also gratifying to be a.s.sured that her engrossing work in astronomy in no wise caused her to neglect her home duties or to lose that sweetness of character and delicacy of refinement for which she was noted before she entered upon the absorbing and taxing career of astronomical computer.

The wife of Lalande's nephew, Mme. Lefrancais de Lalande, proved herself in many respects a worthy successor of Mme. Lepaute. "My niece," writes her uncle, Jerome Lalande, "aids her husband in his observations and draws conclusions from them by calculation. She has reduced the observations of ten thousand stars, and prepared a work of three hundred pages of horary tables--an immense work for her age and s.e.x. They are incorporated in my _Abrege de Navigation_.

"She is one of the rare women who have written scientific books. She has published tables for finding the time at sea by the alt.i.tude of the sun and stars. These tables were printed in 1791 by the order of the National a.s.sembly.... In 1799 she published a catalogue of ten thousand stars, reduced and calculated."

This distinguished observer and computer had a daughter in whom her grand-uncle was particularly interested. "This daughter of astronomy,"

he tells us, "was born the twentieth of January, 1790, the day on which we at Paris saw for the first time the comet which Miss Caroline Herschel had just discovered. The child was accordingly named Caroline; her G.o.dfather was Delambre."

The discoverer of the comet referred to was, in many ways, a most remarkable woman. She was the sister of Sir William Herschel, the ill.u.s.trious pioneer of modern physical astronomy and the virtual founder of sidereal science, as we know it to-day. She was also the aunt of Sir John Herschel, who was the only rival of his uncle, Sir William, as an explorer of the heavens.

But she was far more than a mere relative of these immortal leaders in astronomic science. She herself was an astronomer of distinction, and is known, in the annals of astronomy, as the discoverer of no fewer than eight comets. Great, however, as was her skill as an observer and computer, it was as her brother's a.s.sistant that she is ent.i.tled to the most distinction. Her affection for him was as unbounded as her devotion to his life work was abiding and productive of great results. For fifty years, after joining him in England--they both had been born and bred in Hanover--she was ever at his side, to a.s.sist him in his labors and to cheer him by her words of counsel and encouragement. She helped him to grind and polish the mirrors that were used in his epoch-making reflectors. This was a most arduous task; for, at that time, there was no machinery sufficiently exact for grinding specula, and, as a consequence, the work had all to be done by hand. So interested was the great astronomer in his work, when polishing his larger specula, that he forgot all about the pa.s.sage of time, and on these occasions his sister was constantly obliged, as she herself informs us, "to feed him by putting the victuals by bits into his mouth by way of keeping him alive." When finishing his seven-foot reflector he was on one occasion found so intent on his work that "he had not taken his hands from it for sixteen hours together."

In our day, when all kinds of astronomical apparatus are made by machinery, it is difficult for us to realize what stupendous labor was required to produce those giant telescopes with which the Herschels made their great discoveries and by which they, at the same time, revolutionized the science of the stars. For they had not only to design and make the specula, but also the mountings of the mirrors as well.

And, in order to obtain the money required for material and workmen, they were obliged to make telescopes for sale. This meant an immense loss of precious time that would otherwise have been devoted to the study of the heavens.

After long years of struggle, during which the devoted brother and sister overcame countless difficulties of every kind, their condition was somewhat ameliorated by financial aid from the government and by William's appointment to the position of astronomer royal with a salary of 200 a year. When Sir William Watson heard that this limited sum had been granted by George III to the discoverer of Georgium Sidus--the planet now known as Ura.n.u.s--he exclaimed, "Never bought monarch honor so cheap."

Shortly afterwards Caroline was appointed as a.s.sistant to her brother at a salary of 50 a year. This we should now consider but a nominal sum, but she managed to live on it. When she received the first quarterly payment of twelve pounds she wrote in her memoirs, "It was the first money I ever in all my lifetime thought myself to be at liberty to spend to my liking." Her appointment as a.s.sistant to her brother is notable from the fact that she was the first woman in England, if not in the world, to hold such a position in the government service.

Miss Herschel held this official appointment until Sir William's death in 1822. When not acting as her brother's a.s.sistant or secretary, she devoted her time to what she quaintly called "minding the heavens." It was during this period that she made her most important discoveries. As a.s.sistant, however, to so indefatigable an observer as Sir William Herschel, she had but little time for sweeping the heavens, for, when at home, Sir William "was invariably accustomed to carry on his observations until day-break, circ.u.mstances permitting, without regard to seasons; it was the business of his a.s.sistant to note the clocks and to write down the observations from his dictations as they were made.

Subsequently she a.s.sisted in the laborious numerical calculations and reductions, so that it was only during his absence from home or when any other interruption of his regular course of observation occurred that she was able to devote herself to the Newtonian sweeper, which she used to such good purpose. Besides the eight comets by her discovered, she detected several remarkable nebulae and cl.u.s.ters of stars, previously unnoticed, especially the superb nebulae known as No. 1, Cla.s.s V, in Sir William Herschel's catalogue. Long practice taught her to make light of her work. 'An observer at your twenty-foot when sweeping,' she wrote many years after, 'wants nothing but a being who _can_ and _will_ execute his commands with the quickness of lightning; for you will have seen that in many sweeps six or twice six objects have been secured and described in one minute of time.'"[145]

It was her quick, intelligent action, combined with a patience, enthusiasm and powers of endurance that were most extraordinary, that made Caroline Herschel so valuable as an a.s.sistant to her brother, and enabled him to achieve the unique position which is his among the world's greatest astronomers. Had she been able to devote all her time to "minding the heavens," it is certain that she would have made many more discoveries than are now credited to her; but her service to astronomy would have been less than it was as the auxiliary of her ill.u.s.trious brother. No two ever did better "teamwork"; no two were ever more devoted to each other or exhibited greater enthusiasm in the task to which they so heroically devoted their lives.[146]

In addition to her arduous and engrossing duties as secretary and a.s.sistant to her brother, Caroline found time to prepare a number of works for the press. Among these were a _Catalogue of Eight Hundred and Sixty Stars Observed by Flamsteed but not Included in the British Catalogue_ and _A General Index of Reference to Every Observation of Every Star in the Above-mentioned British Catalogue_. She had the honor of having these two works published by the Royal Society. Another, and a more valuable work, was _The Reduction and Arrangement in the Form of Catalogue, in Zones, of All the Star-Cl.u.s.ters and Nebulae Observed by Sir W. Herschel in His Sweeps_. It was for this catalogue that a gold medal was voted to her by the Royal Astronomical Society in 1828--a production that was characterized as "a work of immense labor" and "an extraordinary monument to the unextinguished ardor of a lady of seventy-five in the cause of abstract science." To her nephew, Sir John Herschel, it proved invaluable, as it supplied the needful data "when he undertook the review of the nebulae of the northern hemisphere." It was also a fitting prelude to Sir John's _Cape Observations_, a copy of which great work she received from her nephew nearly twenty years subsequently, after he had completed his famous observations of the southern heavens in his observatory at the Cape of Good Hope.

"By a most striking and happy coincidence," writes Mrs. John Herschel, "she, whose unflagging toil had so greatly contributed to its successful prosecution in the hands of her beloved brother, lived to witness its triumphant termination through the no less persistent industry and strenuous labor of his son; and her last days were crowned by the possession of the work which brought to its glorious conclusion Sir William Herschel's vast undertaking--_The Survey of the Heavens_."

That Miss Herschel's labors in the cause of astronomy were appreciated by her contemporaries is evidenced by the honors of which she was the recipient. The first of these honors came in the form of a gold medal, unanimously awarded by the Royal Astronomical Society for her reduction of twenty-five hundred nebulae "discovered by her ill.u.s.trious brother, which may be considered as the completion of a series of exertions probably unparalleled either in magnitude or importance in the annals of astronomical labor."

It was on this occasion, when referring to the immensity of the task which Sir William Herschel had undertaken, that the vice-president of the society paid a deserving tribute to the great astronomer's devoted sister, in which is found the following statement:

"Miss Herschel it was who by right acted as his amanuensis; she it was whose pen conveyed to paper his observations as they issued from his lips; she it was who noted the right ascensions and polar distances of the objects observed; she it was who, having pa.s.sed the night near the instrument, took the rough ma.n.u.scripts to her cottage at the dawn of day and produced a fair copy of the night's work on the following morning; she it was who planned the labor of each succeeding night; she it was who reduced every observation, made every calculation; she it was who arranged everything in systematic order; and she it was who helped him to obtain his imperishable name."[147]

Besides this gold medal from the Royal Astronomical Society, Miss Herschel also received two others, one from the King of Denmark and the other from the King of Prussia. The latter was accompanied by a most eulogistic letter from Alexander von Humboldt, who informed her that the medal was awarded her "in recognition of the valuable services rendered by her as the fellow worker of her immortal brother, Sir William Herschel, by discoveries, observations and laborious calculations."

In 1835, when she was eighty-five years of age, Miss Herschel had the signal honor of being elected, along with Mrs. Somerville, an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society. As they were the first two women in England to receive such recognition for their contributions to science, it seems desirable to reproduce here an extract from the report of the council of the society regarding the bestowal of an honor which marked so distinct a change in England of the att.i.tude that should be taken toward women who excelled in intellectual achievements. The extract reads as follows:

"Your council has no small pleasure in recommending that the names of two ladies distinguished in different walks of astronomy be placed on the list of honorary members. On the propriety of such a step, in an astronomical point of view, there can be but one voice; and your council is of the opinion that the time is gone by when either feeling or prejudice, by whichever name it may be proper to call it, should be allowed to interfere with the payment of a well-earned tribute of respect. Your council has. .h.i.therto felt that, whatever might be its own sentiment on the subject, or however able and willing it might be to defend such a measure, it had no right to place the name of a lady in a position the propriety of which might be contested, though upon what it might consider narrow grounds and false principles. But your council has no fear that such a difference could now take place between any men whose opinion could avail to guide the society at large; and, abandoning compliment on the one hand and false delicacy on the other, submits that, while the tests of astronomical merit should in no case be applied to the works of a woman less severely than to those of a man, the s.e.x of the former should no longer be an obstacle to her receiving any acknowledgment which might be held due to the latter. And your council, therefore, recommends this meeting to add to the list of honorary members the names of Miss Caroline Herschel and Mrs. Somerville, of whose astronomical knowledge, and of the utility of the ends to which it has been applied, it is not necessary to recount the proofs."[148]

Three years after this splendid recognition of Miss Herschel's astronomical labors she was elected an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy.

But exceptional as were the honors conferred on her by sovereigns and learned societies, none of them afforded her the extreme satisfaction that she experienced on the receipt of a copy, shortly before her death, of her nephew's epochal _Cape Observations_; for, as has well been said, "nothing in the power of man to bestow could have given such pleasure on her death-bed as this last crowning completion of her brother's work."

We are told that a copy, just from the press, of his immortal work, _De Orbium Celestium Revolutionibus_, in which he had established the heliocentric theory of the planetary system, was placed in the hands of Copernicus on the day of his death, just a few hours before he expired.

He seemed conscious of what it was; but, after touching it and contemplating it for a moment, he lapsed into a state of insensibility which soon terminated in death. With Miss Herschel the case was different. Although in her ninety-seventh year, she still retained possession of all her faculties and was fully able to appreciate the volume which told of the crowning of her brother's life work--a volume which must have given her additional satisfaction when she recalled her fifty years of loyal service at her brother's side as his a.s.sociate and ministering angel in the greatest work ever undertaken by a single man in the history of astronomy.

Caroline Herschel died at the advanced age of ninety-seven years and ten months, retaining to the last her interest in astronomy which had occupied her mind for more than three-quarters of a century.

Her epitaph, composed by herself, is engraved on a heavy stone slab which covers her grave and contains the following words: "The eyes of her who is glorified were here below turned to the starry heavens. Her own discoveries of comets and her partic.i.p.ation in the immortal labors of her brother, William Herschel, bear witness of this to future ages."

s.p.a.ce precludes any extended reference to Miss Herschel's distinguished a.s.sociate in the Royal Astronomical Society, Mrs. Somerville, whose masterly translation and exposition of Laplace's _Mecanique Celeste_ secured for her so enviable a place among the mathematicians of her time, and placed all English students of mathematical astronomy under such deep obligations. It is true that she ever manifested a lively interest in celestial phenomena; but it is rather as a mathematician than as an astronomer that she will be remembered by the devotees of science.

The first American woman to win distinction in astronomy was Miss Maria Mitch.e.l.l. Born in the island of Nantucket in 1818, she, at an early age, displayed remarkable talent for astronomy and mathematics. Her first instructor was her father, who, besides being a school teacher, had from his youth been an enthusiastic student of astronomy, and that, too, at a time when very little attention was given to its study in this country, and when the observatory of Harvard College consisted of only a little projection to an old mansion in Cambridge, in which there was a small telescope.

At the age of thirteen little Maria counted seconds by the chronometer for her father while he observed the annular eclipse of the sun in 1831; and from that time on she was his a.s.siduous co-worker in the study of the heavens. After teaching school for some years, she became the librarian of the Nantucket Atheneum, a position which she held for nearly twenty years. Here she continued the study of her favorite science, and read all the books on astronomy which she could obtain. It was during this period that she read Bowditch's translation of Laplace's _Mecanique Celeste_ and Gauss's _Theoria Motus Corporum Caelestium_ in the original.

On the evening of October 1, 1847, she was the discoverer of a comet that attracted great attention because it secured for her a medal offered by the King of Denmark in 1831 for the first one who should discover a telescopic comet. The same comet was observed by Father de Vico in Rome two days subsequently, by Dawes in England on October seventh, and by Madame Rumker, wife of the director of the observatory of Hamburg, on the eleventh of the same month. As there was no Atlantic cable in those days, it was not known who was the fortunate winner of the prize until nearly a year afterward, when word was received from Denmark announcing that the priority of Miss Mitch.e.l.l's discovery had been recognized and that she would be the recipient of the prize, which, for a while, it was thought would go to De Vico or Madame Rumker.[149]

In 1849 Miss Mitch.e.l.l was appointed a compiler for the _Nautical Almanac_, a position she held for nineteen years. During the same period she was employed by the United States Coast Survey.

When Va.s.sar College was opened in 1865 for the higher education of women, Miss Mitch.e.l.l was called to fill the chair of astronomy and to be the first director of the observatory. In this position she soon succeeded in giving astronomy a prominence that it never had had before in any other college for women, and in but few for men.

Miss Mitch.e.l.l was a member of several learned societies and the author of a number of papers containing the results of her observations on Jupiter and Saturn and their satellites. But she is notable chiefly for being the first woman astronomer in the United States and for training up a number of young women who have followed in her footsteps as enthusiastic astronomers. She held her position at Va.s.sar until 1889, when she died, a few months before her seventy-first birthday.

Since the pioneer days of Miss Caroline Herschel, the number of women throughout the world who have achieved distinction in astronomy has rapidly augmented. One of the most noted of these was Caterina Scarpellini, niece of Feliciano Scarpellini, professor of astronomy in Rome, restorer of the Academy of the Lyncei, and founder of the Capitoline Observatory. Born in 1808, she manifested at an early age a decided taste for astronomy, which was carefully developed by her uncle.

She it was who organized the Meteorologico Ozonometric station in Rome and edited its monthly bulletin. She exhibited a special interest in shooting stars and prepared the first catalogue of these meteors observed in Italy. In 1854 she discovered a comet. She has also left valuable studies on the probable influence of the moon on earthquakes--studies which brought her distinction from several of the learned societies of Europe. In 1872 the Italian government decreed her a gold medal for her statistical labors in science. Since her death her countrymen have recognized the value of her contributions to science by erecting a statue to her memory.

Another woman who has won enduring fame in the annals of astronomy is Miss Dorothea Klumpke, of San Francisco. While yet quite young, she and her sisters were taken to Europe to be educated. There she soon became proficient in a number of languages, and then devoted herself to the study of mathematics and astronomy. After securing her baccalaureate and licentiate in Paris, she applied for admission as a student to the Paris observatory. "The directors of the observatory consulted the statutes.

No woman had hitherto proposed herself as a colleague, but there was no rule opposing it. They themselves approved, and gave her a telescope to make her own observations. After a time she completed the work begun by Mme. Kovalevsky on the rings of Saturn, which she made the subject of her thesis, and, when she had become Doctor of Science, she was given a decoration by the Inst.i.tute and made an _Officier de l'Academie_."