Urania, the muse of astronomy, was a woman; and, although most of her devotees have been men, the number of the gentler sex who have achieved success in the cultivation of the science of the stars has been much larger than is usually supposed.

There is reason to believe that woman's interest in astronomy dates back to early Egyptian and Babylonian times when the star-gazers in the fertile valley of the Nile and on the broad plains of Chaldea were so active, and when they made so many important discoveries respecting the laws and movements of the heavenly bodies. According to Plutarch, Aganice, the daughter of Sesostris, King of Egypt, tried to predict future events by the aid of celestial globes and by the study of the constellations. Her observations, however, were in the interests of astrology rather than of astronomy, as we now understand the science.

The first woman whose name has come down to us, who deserved to be regarded as an astronomer, was most probably Aglaonice, the daughter of Hegetoris of Thessaly. By means of the lunar cycle known as the Saros, a period discovered by the Chaldean astronomers and embracing a little more than eighteen years, during which the eclipses of the moon and sun recur in nearly the same order as during the preceding period, this Greek woman was able to predict eclipses. The people among whom she lived regarded her as a sorceress; but she flouted them all, and declared that she was able to make the sun and moon disappear at will.

The first woman, however, to attain eminence as an astronomer was undoubtedly Hypatia, that universal genius of the ancient world, who seemed equally at home in literature, philosophy and mathematics, and who may justly be regarded as one of the most highly gifted women that has ever lived. In Alexandria, where she was born and lived, this accomplished daughter of Theon taught not only philosophy, but also algebra, geometry and astronomy. One of her pupils, Synesius, who became Bishop of Ptolemais, informs us that she was the inventor of two important astronomical instruments: an astrolabe and a planisphere. In addition to two mathematical works, a Treatise on the Conics of Apollonius and a Commentary on the Arithmetic of Diophantus, which was in reality a treatise on algebra, she was the author of an Astronomical Canon, which contained tables regarding the movements of the heavenly bodies. It is generally supposed that this was an original work; but there are some who think it was but a commentary on the tables of Ptolemy. In this latter case Hypatia's work may still exist in connection with that of her father, Theon, on the same subject.[134]

If the works of Hypatia had not been destroyed by the ravages of time, they would undoubtedly prove that she fully merited all the encomiums bestowed on her by antiquity for her genius; and they would also prove, we may well believe, that she deserved to be ranked not only with the eminent mathematicians upon whose works she commented, but also with such masters of astronomic science as Ptolemy, Eratosthenes and Aristarchus.

After the tragic death of Hypatia many centuries elapsed before any other woman attracted attention for her work in astronomy. Indeed, so neglected was the study of the heavens between the time of Hypatia and the Arab prince and astronomer, Albategni, who flourished during the latter part of the ninth century and the early part of the tenth, that only eight observations, it is asserted, were recorded during this long period. The works and observations of Albategni, it may be remarked, have a particular interest from the fact that they form a connecting link between those of the Alexandrine astronomers and those of modern Europe.

Antoine Hamilton, in his Gaufrey—a parody on The Thousand and One Nights—tells of a Saracen princess, Fleur d'Épine, who, before she was fifteen years of age, was able not only to speak Latin and Romance, but who was also "better acquainted than any woman in the world with the movements of the stars and the moon."

If any woman between the time of Hypatia and Galileo deserved such high praise for her astronomical knowledge it was certainly Saint Hildegard, the famous Benedictine abbess of Bingen on the Rhine. She has well been called "the marvel of the twelfth century," not only on account of her sanctity, but also on account of her extraordinary attainments in every branch of knowledge then cultivated.

When treating of the sun, Hildegard tells us that it is in the center of the firmament and holds in place the stars that gravitate around it, as the earth attracts the creatures which inhabit it. This view of a twelfth century nun is indeed remarkable. For, in her time, the earth was by everyone considered as the center of the firmament, while universal gravitation—the sublime discovery of Newton—had not as yet entered into the scientific theories of that epoch.

Hildegard likewise anticipates subsequent discoveries regarding the alternation of the seasons. "If," she writes, "it is cold in the winter time on the part of the earth which we inhabit, the other part must be warm, in order that the temperature of the earth may always be in equilibrium." That she should have arrived at this conclusion before navigators had visited the southern hemisphere is truly astonishing.[135]

"The stars," she continues, "have neither the same brightness nor the same size. They are kept in their course by a superior body." Here again is her idea of universal gravitation.

These stars, she further declares, are not immovable, but they traverse the firmament in its entirety. And to make clearer her conception of the motion of the stars, she compares this motion to that of the blood in the veins. To hear one of this early period speaking of blood coursing through the veins and thus traversing the whole body of man seems to presage, in a remarkable manner, the beautiful discoveries of Cesalpino and Harvey regarding the circulation of the blood.

The most celebrated astronomer of the early Renaissance was John MÜller, of KÖnigsburg, better known as Regiomontanus. In his observatory in Nuremberg he was ably assisted by his wife who exhibited a special interest in astronomy. At the end of the sixteenth century, Sophia Brahe, the youngest sister of Tycho Brahe, following in the footsteps of her illustrious brother, attained great celebrity as an astronomer.

More distinguished for her astronomical work than either of these two women was Maria Cunitz, a Silesian, who, from her tenderest years, displayed extraordinary zeal for study and who eventually became mistress of seven languages, among which were Latin, Greek and Hebrew. She also cultivated poetry, music and painting; but her favorite studies were mathematics and astronomy. At the solicitation of her husband, she undertook the preparation of an abridgment of the Rudolphine Tables. Her work, under the name of Urania Propitia, was published after her death by her husband, and gained for the talented authoress the name of "The second Hypatia."[136]

Shortly after the completion of Urania Propitia, a French woman, Jeanne DumÉe, distinguished herself by writing a work on the theory of Copernicus entitled Entretiens sur l'Opinion de Copernic Touchant la MobilitÉ de la Terre. So far as known, this work was never published, but the original manuscript is still preserved in the National Library of Paris. The authoress deems it necessary it apologize for writing on a subject that is usually considered foreign to her sex and to explain why she was ambitious to discuss questions to which the women of her time never gave any thought. It was that she might "prove to them that they are not incapable of study, if they wish to make the effort, because between the brain of a woman and that of a man there is no difference."[137]

How often before had not women endeavored to prove the equality of brain power of the two sexes, and how often since have they bent their efforts in this direction! And yet the majority of men still remain skeptical about such equality.

Among the contemporaries of Jeanne DumÉe were two other women who gained more than ordinary distinction by their attainments in astronomy. These were Mme. de la SabliÈre, in France, and Maria Margaret Kirch, of Germany.

Mme. de la SabliÈre evinced from an early age a special aptitude for science, especially for physics and astronomy. She studied mathematics under the eminent mathematician, Roberval, and at the age of thirty was famous. Her home became the resort of learned and eminent men, including some of the most noted characters of the age. Among these was Sobieski, King of Poland. But it is as the friend and protectress of La Fontaine and as the object of Boileau's satire that she is best known.

For a woman to devote herself to the study of science so soon after the appearance of MoliÈre's Les Femmes Savantes argued more than ordinary courage. But for her to become distinguished for her scientific acquirements was almost tantamount to defying public opinion. The great majority of men had come to regard learned women in the same light as those who were so mercilessly derided in the PrÉcieuses Ridicules; and they had, accordingly, no hesitation in treating them as unbearable pedants. No one could have made less parade of her learning than Mme. de la SabliÈre, or striven more successfully to conceal her admirable gifts. But this was not sufficient. She was known to have devoted special study to science, particularly to astronomy, and this was sufficient to make her the target of the satirists of her time.

By an act that wounded the self-love of Boileau this Venus Urania, as she has been called, soon found herself the victim of the satirist's well-directed shafts. The poet does not name her, but refers to her as

this learned woman whom Roberval esteems and whom Sauveur frequents. And with the view of pricking the object of his spleen in her most sensitive part, he tells, in his Satire contre les Femmes, how she, with astrolabe in hand, spends her nights in making observations of the planet Jupiter and how this occupation has had the effect of weakening her sight and ruining her complexion.[138]

Mme. de la SabliÈre does not, however, seem to have been greatly perturbed by the ungracious effusions of the satirist, for she continued her cultivation of astronomy as before the poet's ill-natured outburst. She probably found ample compensation in the writings of La Fontaine, who addressed her as his muse and proclaimed her as one in whom were combined manly beauty and feminine grace—beautÉ d'homme avec grace de femme.

Maria Kirch, born at Panitch, near Leipsic, in 1670, was the wife of a Berlin astronomer, Gottfried Kirch. After her marriage she, like her three sisters-in-law, became her husband's pupil in astronomy. In 1702, as his assistant in observations and calculations, she was fortunate enough to discover a comet. She was the friend of Leibnitz, and was by him presented to the court of Prussia. It is a matter of regret to those of her own sex that this comet was not, as it should have been, named after its discoverer.

The death of Herr Kirch, which took place in 1710, caused no interruption in Frau Kirch's astronomical occupations. Among the evidences of her activity is a work which she wrote in 1713 on the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the year following. In our day the conjunction of planets is for the laity a mere matter of curiosity, while for professional astronomers it is quite devoid of particular interest. But it was not so in the time of Maria Kirch, for then astronomy was so intimately associated with astrology that mankind attributed to such special positions of the planets a certain occult and capricious influence on the destiny of the earth and its inhabitants. As theoretical astronomy progressed, such erroneous notions were abandoned, because it was then recognized that the conjunction of the superior planets was not something fortuitous, but something that was reproduced at fixed periods by the known movements of these bodies. Writers on the subject made it a point to warn the public that they had nothing in common with astrologers. Among these was Christopher Thurm, who published a work on the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 1681. Similarly, the book of Maria Kirch contains only astronomical calculations and nothing more—a fact that redounds to the honor of the author and to the age in which she lived.

The daughters of Maria Kirch, even long after their mother's death, continued to occupy themselves with astronomy. They calculated for the Berlin Academy of Sciences its Almanac and Ephemeris, which were among the sources of revenue of this learned body.

During the same period a number of French and Italian astronomers had female collaborators in their own families. Celsus, the celebrated professor of Upsala, and a pupil of the son of Gottfried Kirch, had been accorded a most cordial reception, while passing through Paris on his way to Bologna, by De L'Isle who had a sister who was devoted to astronomy. On his arrival in Italy he found that his new master, the director of the observatory at Bologna, had two sisters, Teresa and Maddalena, both of great learning, who, like their brother, were engaged in the study of the heavens and collaborated with him in the preparation of the Ephemeris of Bologna. This caused Celsus, in a letter to Kirch, to declare "I begin to believe that it is the destiny of all the astronomers whom I have had the honor of becoming acquainted with during my journey to have learned sisters. I have also a sister, although not a very learned one. To preserve the harmony, we must make an astronomer of her."[139]

The Polish astronomer, Hevilius, who had an observatory at Dantzig, is noted for having made the most accurate observations that had been known before the adaptation of the telescope to astronomical instruments. He is also noted for his Prodromus AstronomiÆ, a catalogue of 1,888 stars; for his Selenographia, containing accurate descriptions and drawings of the moon in her different phases and librations, and for his Machina Coelestis, which contained the results of forty years of observations and labor. Much of his success and eminence, however, was due to his intelligent and devoted wife, Elizabeth, who, during twenty-seven years, was a zealous collaborator and should share the credit usually given to her husband. It was she who, after his death, edited and published their joint work, the Prodromus AstronomiÆ.

Among the women most distinguished in the eighteenth century for astronomical pursuits was the Marquise du ChÂtelet, who was likewise famous for her knowledge of mathematics. It was she who accomplished the difficult task of translating Newton's Principia into French. "This translation," writes Voltaire, "which the most learned men of France should have made and which the others should study, was undertaken by a woman and completed to the astonishment and glory of her country."[140]

France was at this time devoted to the doctrines of Descartes and to his theory of elementary vortices; and Voltaire, who had been deeply impressed by the admirable simplicity of Newton's theory of universal attraction as a means of explaining the seemingly complex motions of the heavenly bodies, resolved to make his countrymen acquainted with the teachings of the great English geometer and, at the same time, dethrone Descartes in the French Academy. It was, indeed, a huge undertaking; but, thanks to the ability which Mme. du ChÂtelet displayed in translating and elucidating Newton's immortal masterpiece, he lived to see his dream realized.

How proud Mme. du ChÂtelet's countrywomen must have been of her! How they must have rejoiced in her success and acclaimed her as the intellectual glory of her sex! How they must have pointed to her work as a triumphant refutation of the age-old belief in woman's incapacity for mathematics and all abstract science! How they must have been elated to find one of their number successfully executing a task which would have taxed the powers of the most eminent mathematicians of France! How they must have associated her truly notable performance with similar achievements of Hypatia and Maria Gaetana Agnesi and discerned in it concrete evidence of the falsity of all those imputations of mental inferiority which had been fostered by "man's huge egotism and woman's carefully coddled superstition." How they must have been encouraged by her achievement and spurred on to emulate her by similar contributions to the advancement of science!

That is what we think now; but the light and frivolous women who constituted the leaders of society in Mme. du ChÂtelet'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 pronounced enemies. Neither MoliÈre 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 noble dames of provincial chÂteaux or by distinguished habituÉes of prominent Parisian salons.

Thus the petulant ennuyÉe, Mme. de StaËl, in a letter to her friend, Mme. du Deffand, writing of Mme. du ChÂtelet, who was then her guest at Sceaux, tells us that "she is now passing 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 ChÂtelet, 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 Duchesse 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 Duchesse 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, TraitÉ 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 assistance. 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 assumed 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 Japan Rose—originally called Pautia, but changed to Hortensia by Jussieu—was named after this distinguished woman. It is also gratifying to be assured 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. LefranÇais de Lalande, proved herself in many respects a worthy successor of Mme. Lepaute. "My niece," writes her uncle, JÉrÔme 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 sex. They are incorporated in my AbrÉgÉ 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 altitude of the sun and stars. These tables were printed in 1791 by the order of the National Assembly.... 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 godfather 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 illustrious 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 assistant that she is entitled 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 assist 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 passage 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 Uranus—he exclaimed, "Never bought monarch honor so cheap."

Shortly afterwards Caroline was appointed as assistant 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 assistant 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 assistant 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 assistant, 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, circumstances permitting, without regard to seasons; it was the business of his assistant to note the clocks and to write down the observations from his dictations as they were made. Subsequently she assisted 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 nebulÆ and clusters of stars, previously unnoticed, especially the superb nebulÆ known as No. 1, Class 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 assistant 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 illustrious 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 assistant 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-Clusters and NebulÆ 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 nebulÆ 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 nebulÆ "discovered by her illustrious 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 passed the night near the instrument, took the rough manuscripts 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 attitude 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 hitherto 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 sex 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 associate 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 participation in the immortal labors of her brother, William Herschel, bear witness of this to future ages."

Space precludes any extended reference to Miss Herschel's distinguished associate in the Royal Astronomical Society, Mrs. Somerville, whose masterly translation and exposition of Laplace's MÉcanique CÉleste 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 Mitchell. 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 assiduous 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 MÉcanique CÉleste and Gauss's Theoria Motus Corporum CÆlestium 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 RÜmker, 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 Mitchell'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 RÜmker.[149]

In 1849 Miss Mitchell 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 Vassar College was opened in 1865 for the higher education of women, Miss Mitchell 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 Mitchell 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 Vassar 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. KovalÉvsky 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 Institute and made an Officier de l'AcadÉmie."

After Miss Klumpke had brilliantly defended her thesis in the Sorbonne, M. Darboux, the president of the jury, complimented the young American doctor on her splendid work and concluded a notable address in her honor in the following laudatory words:

"The great names of Galileo, of Huyghens, of Cassini, of Laplace, without speaking of those of my illustrious colleagues and friends, are attached to the history of every serious step forward made in this attractive and difficult theory of Saturn's rings. Your work constitutes another valuable contribution to the same subject and places you in an honorable rank beside those women who have consecrated themselves to the study of mathematics. In the last century Maria Agnesi gave us a treatise on the differential and integral calculus. Since then Sophie Germain, as remarkable for her literary and philosophical talent as for her faculty for mathematics, won the esteem of the great geometricians who honored our country at the commencement of this century. It is but a few years since the Academy awarded one of its most beautiful prizes which will place the name of Mme. KovalÉvsky beside those of Euler and Lagrange in the history of discoveries relative to the theory of the movement of a solid body about a fixed point.... And you, mademoiselle, your thesis is the first which a woman has presented and successfully defended before our faculty for the degree of doctor in mathematics. You worthily open the way, and the faculty unanimously makes haste to declare you worthy of obtaining the degree of doctor."

Besides her thesis just referred to, Miss Klumpke is the author of numerous communications to scientific journals and learned societies regarding her researches on the spectra of stars and meteorites and other allied subjects. For many years she was at the head of the bureau in the Paris Observatory for measuring the photographic plates that are to be used in the large catalogue of stars and map of the heavens which are to constitute the crowning achievements of the International Astronomical Congress. She was the first woman to be elected a member of the Astronomical Society of France, and the character of her work as an observer as well as a computer has given her an enviable position among the astronomers of the world.[150]

In America another woman has won renown among astronomers by successfully executing the same kind of work as was entrusted to Miss Dorothea Klumpke in Paris. For many years Mrs. W. Fleming, with her large corps of women assistants, had charge of the immense collection of astronomical photographs in the Observatory of Harvard University. To her and her staff were assigned the reductions and measurements of the photographic and photometric work done in Cambridge and Arequipa, Peru. She was singularly successful in her studies of photographic plates and made many discoveries which astronomers regard of the greatest importance. By such studies she and her assistants detected many new nebulÆ, double and variable stars, besides spectra of different types and of rare interest. In addition to this they examined and classified tens of thousands of photographs of stellar spectra, a labor which involved countless details of reduction and measurements of exceeding delicacy and skill.

A complete list of the women who, during the past half century, have devoted themselves to the study of astronomy and who have contributed to its advancement by their observations and writings would be a very long one. Among those, however, whose labors have attracted special notice, mention must be made of the Misses Antonia C. Maury, Florence Cushman, Louisa D. Wells, Mabel C. Stephens, Eva F. Leland, Anna Winlock, Annie J. Cannon and Henrietta S. Leavitt, all of whom are on the staff of the Harvard Observatory.

Then, too, there are many women who occupy important positions as professors or assistant professors in our colleges and universities. Chief among these in the United States are Sarah F. Whiting, of Wellesley; Mary W. Whitney, of Vassar; Mary E. Boyd, of Smith; Susan Cunningham, of Swarthmore, and Annie S. Young, of Mt. Holyoke. Nor must we forget such able computers as Mrs. Margaretta Palmer, of Yale, and Miss Hanna Mace, the clever assistant of the late Simon Newcomb in the Naval Observatory in Washington.

In the Old World among the women who, during the last few decades, have materially contributed to the progress of astronomy, either as observers and computers or as writers, are Miss Alice Everett, who has done splendid work in the observatories of Greenwich and Potsdam, Misses M. A. Orr, Mary Ashley, Alice Brown, Mary Proctor—daughter of the late astronomer, R. A. Proctor—Agnes M. and Ellen M. Clerke, and Lady Huggins, of England; Mmes. Jansen, Faye, and Flammarion, in France; the Countess Bobinski, in Russia; and Miss Pogson, in the Observatory of Madras, India.

In conclusion, it is but just to observe that women's work in astronomy has by no means been confined to their contributions as observers, writers and computers. Reference must also be made to the financial aid which they have given to various observatories and learned societies for the furtherance of astronomical research both in the New and the Old World. It must suffice here to recall the endowment at Harvard University of the Henry Draper Memorial, by Mrs. Henry Draper, in order that the work of photographing stellar spectra, which occupied her husband's later years, might be continued under the most favorable auspices, and the munificent sum of fifty thousand dollars given by Miss C. Bruce, of New York, for the construction of a large telescope especially designed for photographing faint stars and nebulÆ. The photographs taken with this instrument will be used in the preparation of the great chart of the heavens which is to be the joint production of the chief observatories of the world.

[134] Cf. the preceding chapter, p. 140. See also Histoire de l'Astronomie Ancienne, Tom. I, p. 317, par. M. Delambre, Paris, 1817.