"'And as they passed by the great house of a lord,
A beautiful chariot there came,
To take some most elegant ladies abroad,
Who straightway got into the same,'"
and went on to the end. I do not know which of the two was more
surprised: Airy, to find an American woman who was interested in his
favorite ballad, or she to find that he could repeat it by heart.
The incident was the commencement of a family friendship which has
outlived both the heads of the Airy family.
We may look back on Airy as the most commanding figure in the
astronomy of our time. He owes this position not only to his
early works in mathematical astronomy, but also to his ability as
an organizer. Before his time the working force of an observatory
generally consisted of individual observers, each of whom worked to a
greater or less extent in his own way. It is true that organization
was not unknown in such institutions. Nominally, at least, the
assistants in a national observatory were supposed to follow the
instructions of a directing head. This was especially the case
at Greenwich. Still, great dependence was placed upon the judgment
and ability of the observer himself, who was generally expected to
be a man well trained in his specialty, and able to carry on good
work without much help. From Airy's point of view, it was seen
that a large part of the work necessary to the attainment of the
traditional end of the Royal Observatory was of a kind that almost
any bright schoolboy could learn to do in a few weeks, and that in
most of the remaining part plodding industry, properly directed, was
more important than scientific training. He could himself work out
all the mathematical formulae and write all the instructions required
to keep a small army of observers and computers employed, and could
then train in his methods a few able lieutenants, who would see that
all the details were properly executed. Under these lieutenants was a
grade comprising men of sufficient technical education to enable them
to learn how to point the telescope, record a transit, and perform the
other technical operations necessary in an astronomical observation.
A third grade was that of computers: ingenious youth, quick at
figures, ready to work for a compensation which an American laborer
would despise, yet well enough schooled to make simple calculations.
Under the new system they needed to understand only the four rules of
arithmetic; indeed, so far as possible Airy arranged his calculations
in such a way that subtraction and division were rarely required.
His boys had little more to do than add and multiply. Thus, so far
as the doing of work was concerned, he introduced the same sort of
improvement that our times have witnessed in great manufacturing
establishments, where labor is so organized that unskilled men
bring about results that formerly demanded a high grade of technical
ability. He introduced production on a large scale into astronomy.
At the time of my visit, it was much the fashion among astronomers
elsewhere to speak slightingly of the Greenwich system. The
objections to it were, in substance, the same that have been made to
the minute subdivision of labor. The intellect of the individual
was stunted for the benefit of the work. The astronomer became a
mere operative. Yet it must be admitted that the astronomical work
done at Greenwich during the sixty years since Airy introduced his
system has a value and an importance in its specialty that none
done elsewhere can exceed. All future conclusions as to the laws
of motion of the heavenly bodies must depend largely upon it.
The organization of his little army necessarily involved a
corresponding change in the instruments they were to use. Before his
time the trained astronomer worked with instruments of very delicate
construction, so that skill in handling them was one of the requisites
of an observer. Airy made them in the likeness of heavy machinery,
which could suffer no injury from a blow of the head of a careless
observer. Strong and simple, they rarely got out of order. It is
said that an assistant who showed a visiting astronomer the transit
circle some times hit it a good slap to show how solid it was; but
this was not done on the present occasion. The little army had its
weekly marching orders and made daily reports of progress to its
commander, who was thus enabled to control the minutest detail of
every movement.
In the course of the evening Airy gave me a lesson in method, which
was equally instructive and entertaining. In order to determine the
longitude of Gibraltar, it was necessary that time signals should
be sent by telegraph from the Royal Observatory. Our conversation
naturally led us into a discussion of the general subject of such
operations. I told him of the difficulties we had experienced in
determining a telegraphic longitude,--that of the Harvard Observatory
from Washington, for example,--because it was only after a great deal
of talking and arranging on the evening of the observation that the
various telegraph stations between the two points could have their
connections successfully made at the same moment. At the appointed
hour the Washington operator would be talking with the others,
to know if they were ready, and so a general discussion about the
arrangements might go on for half an hour before the connections
were all reported good. If we had such trouble in a land line,
how should we get a connection from London to the Gibraltar cable
through lines in constant use?
"But," said Airy, "I never allow an operator who can speak with the
instruments to take part in determining a telegraphic longitude."
"Then how can you get the connections all made from one end of the
line to the other, at the same moment, if your operators cannot talk
to one another?"
"Nothing is simpler. I fix in advance a moment, say eight
o'clock Greenwich mean time, at which signals are to commence.
Every intermediate office through which the signals are to pass is
instructed to have its wires connected in both directions exactly
at the given hour, and to leave them so connected for ten minutes,
without asking any further instructions. At the end of the line
the instruments must be prepared at the appointed hour to receive
the signals. All I have to do here is to place my clock in the
circuit and send on the signals for ten minutes, commencing at
eight o'clock. They are recorded at the other end of the line
without further trouble."
"But have you never met with a failure to understand the
instructions?"
"No; they are too simple to be mistaken, once it is understood that
no one has anything to do but make his connections at the designated
moment, without asking whether any one else is ready."
Airy was noted not less for his ability as an organizer than for his
methodical habits. The care with which he preserved every record led
Sir William Rowan Hamilton to say that when Airy wiped his pen on a
blotter, he fancied him as always taking a press copy of the mark.
His machinery seemed to work perfectly, whether it was constructed
of flesh or of brass. He could prepare instructions for the most
complicated piece of work with such effective provision against
every accident and such completeness in every detail that the work
would go on for years without further serious attention from him.
The instruments which he designed half a century ago are mostly in
use to this day, with scarcely an alteration.
Yet there is some reason to fear that Airy carried method a little
too far to get the best results. Of late years his system has been
greatly changed, even at Greenwich. It was always questionable
whether so rigid a military routine could accomplish the best that
was possible in astronomy; and Airy himself, during his later years,
modified his plan by trying to secure trained scientific men as his
assistants, giving them liberty to combine independent research, on
their own account, with the work of the establishment. His successor
has gone farther in the same direction, and is now gathering around
him a corps of young university men, from whose ability much may
be expected. Observations with the spectroscope have been pursued,
and the observatory has taken a prominent part in the international
work of making a photographic map of the heavens. Of special
importance are the regular discussions of photographs of the sun,
taken in order to determine the law of the variation of the spots.
The advantage of the regular system which has been followed for
more than fifty years is seen in the meteorological observations;
these disprove some theories of the relation between the sun and
the weather, in a way that no other set of meteorological records
has done. While delicate determinations of the highest precision,
such as those made at Pulkova, are not yet undertaken to any great
extent, a regular even if slow improvement is going on in the general
character of the observations and researches, which must bear fruit
in due time.
One of the curious facts we learned at Greenwich was that astronomy
was still supposed to be astrology by many in England. That a belief
in astrology should survive was perhaps not remarkable, though I
do not remember to have seen any evidence of it in this country.
But applications received at the Royal Observatory, from time to
time, showed a widespread belief among the masses that one of the
functions of the astronomer royal was the casting of horoscopes.
We went to Edinburgh. Our first visit was to the observatory,
then under the direction of Professor C. Piazzi Smyth, who was also
an Egyptologist of repute, having made careful measurements of the
Pyramids, and brought out some new facts regarding their construction.
He was thus led to the conclusion that they bore marks of having been
built by a people of more advanced civilization than was generally
supposed,--so advanced, indeed, that we had not yet caught up to them
in scientific investigation. These views were set forth with great
fullness in his work on "The Antiquity of Intellectual Man," as well
as in other volumes describing his researches. He maintained that the
builders of the Pyramids knew the distance of the sun rather better
than we did, and that the height of the Great Pyramid had been so
arranged that if it was multiplied by a thousand millions we should
get this distance more exactly than we could measure it in these
degenerate days. With him, to believe in the Pyramid was to believe
this, and a great deal more about the civilization which it proved.
So, when he asked me whether I believed in the Pyramid, I told him
that I did not think I would depend wholly upon the Pyramid for the
distance of the sun to be used in astronomy, but should want its
indications at least confirmed by modern researches. The hint was
sufficient, and I was not further pressed for views on this subject.
He introduced us to Lady Hamilton, widow of the celebrated
philosopher, who still held court at Edinburgh. The daughter of the
family was in repute as a metaphysician. This was interesting,
because I had never before heard of a female metaphysician,
although there were several cases of female mathematicians
recorded in history. First among them was Donna Maria Agnesi,
who wrote one of the best eighteenth-century books on the calculus,
and had a special dispensation from the Pope to teach mathematics
at Bologna. We were therefore very glad to accept an invitation
from Lady Hamilton to spend an evening with a few of her friends.
Her rooms were fairly filled with books, the legacy of one of whom
it was said that "scarcely a thought has come down to us through
the ages which he has not mastered and made his own."
The few guests were mostly university people and philosophers.
The most interesting of them was Professor Blackie, the Grecian
scholar, who was the liveliest little man of sixty I ever saw;
amusing us by singing German songs, and dancing about the room like
a sprightly child among its playmates. I talked with Miss Hamilton
about Mill, whose "Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy"
was still fresh in men's minds. Of course she did not believe in this
book, and said that Mill could not understand her father's philosophy.
With all her intellect, she was a fine healthy-looking young lady,
and it was a sad surprise, a few years later, to hear of her death.
Madame Sophie Kovalevsky afterward appeared on the stage as the
first female mathematician of our time, but it may be feared that
the woman philosopher died with Miss Hamilton.
A large party of English astronomers were going to Algeria to observe
the eclipse. The government had fitted up a naval transport for their
use, and as I was arranging for a passage on a ship of the Peninsular
and Oriental Line we received an invitation to become the guests of
the English party. Among those on board were Professor Tyndall;
Mr. Huggins, the spectroscopist; Sir Erastus Ommaney, a retired
English admiral, and a fellow of the Royal Society; Father Perry,
S. J., a well-known astronomer; and Lieutenant Wharton, who afterward
became hydrographer to the Admiralty.
The sprightliest man on board was Professor Tyndall. He made up
for the absence of mountains by climbing to every part of the ship
he could reach. One day he climbed the shrouds to the maintop,
and stood surveying the scene as if looking out from the top of
the Matterhorn. A sailor followed him, and drew a chalk-line around
his feet. I assume the reader knows what this means; if he does not,
he can learn by straying into the sailors' quarters the first time he
is on board an ocean steamer. But the professor absolutely refused
to take the hint.
We had a rather rough passage, from which Father Perry was the
greatest sufferer. One day he heard a laugh from the only lady on
board, who was in the adjoining stateroom. "Who can laugh at such
a time as this!" he exclaimed. He made a vow that he would never
go on the ocean again, even if the sun and moon fought for a month.
But the vows of a seasick passenger are forgotten sooner than any
others I know of; and it was only four years later that Father Perry
made a voyage to Kerguelen Island, in the stormiest ocean on the
globe, to observe a transit of Venus.
Off the coast of Spain, the leading chains of the rudder got loose,
during a gale in the middle of the night, and the steering apparatus
had to be disconnected in order to tighten them. The ship veered
round into the trough of the sea, and rolled so heavily that a table,
twenty or thirty feet long, in the saloon, broke from its fastenings,
and began to dance around the cabin with such a racket that some of
the passengers feared for the safety of the ship.
Just how much of a storm there was I cannot say, believing that it
is never worth while for a passenger to leave his berth, if there
is any danger of a ship foundering in a gale. But in Professor
Tyndall's opinion we had a narrow escape. On arriving at Gibraltar,
he wrote a glowing account of the storm to the London Times, in
which he described the feelings of a philosopher while standing on
the stern of a rolling ship in an ocean storm, without quite knowing
whether she was going to sink or swim. The letter was anonymous,
which gave Admiral Ommaney an excellent opportunity to write as
caustic a reply as he chose, under the signature of "A Naval Officer."
He said that sailor was fortunate who could arrange with the clerk
of the weather never to have a worse storm in crossing the Bay of
Biscay than the one we had experienced.
We touched at Cadiz, and anchored for a few hours, but did not go
ashore. The Brooklyn, an American man-of-war, was in the harbor,
but there was no opportunity to communicate with her, though I knew
a friend of mine was on board.
Gibraltar is the greatest babel in the world, or, at least, the
greatest I know. I wrote home: "The principal languages spoken at
this hotel are English, Spanish, Moorish, French, Italian, German,
and Danish. I do not know what languages they speak at the other
hotels." Moorish and Spanish are the local tongues, and of course
English is the official one; but the traders and commercial travelers
speak nearly every language one ever heard.
I hired a Moor--who bore some title which indicated that he was a
descendant of the Caliphs, and by which he had to be addressed--to do
chores and act as general assistant. One of the first things I did,
the morning after my arrival, was to choose a convenient point on
one of the stone parapets for "taking the sun," in order to test the
running of my chronometer. I had some suspicion as to the result,
but was willing to be amused. A sentinel speedily informed me that
no sights were allowed to be taken on the fortification. I told him
I was taking sights on the sun, not on the fortification. But he was
inexorable; the rule was that no sights of any sort could be taken
without a permit. I soon learned from Mr. Sprague, the American
consul, who the proper officer was to issue the permit, which I
was assured would be granted without the slightest difficulty.
The consul presented me to the military governor of the place,
General Sir Fenwick Williams of Kars. I did not know till long
afterward that he was born very near where I was. He was a man whom
it was very interesting to meet. His heroic defense of the town whose
name was added to his own as a part of his title was still fresh in
men's minds. It had won him the order of the Bath in England, the
Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor and a sword from Napoleon III., and
the usual number of lesser distinctions. The military governor, the
sole authority and viceroy of the Queen in the fortress, is treated
with the deference due to an exalted personage; but this deference
so strengthens the dignity of the position that the holder may be
frank and hearty at his own pleasure, without danger of impairing it.
Certainly, we found Sir Fenwick a most genial and charming gentleman.
The Alabama claims were then in their acute stage, and he expressed
the earnest hope that the two nations would not proceed to cutting
each other's throats over them.
There was no need of troubling the governor with such a detail as
that of a permit to take sights; but the consul ventured to relate
my experience of the morning. He took the information in a way
which showed that England, in making him a general, had lost a
good diplomatist. Instead of treating the matter seriously, which
would have implied that we did not fully understand the situation, he
professed to be greatly amused, and said it reminded him of the case
of an old lady in "Punch" who had to pass a surveyor in the street,
behind a theodolite. "Please, sir, don't shoot till I get past,"
she begged.
Before leaving England, I had made very elaborate arrangements,
both with the Astronomer Royal and with the telegraph companies,
to determine the longitude of Gibraltar by telegraphic signals.
The most difficult part of the operation was the transfer of the
signals from the end of the land line into the cable, which had to
be done by hand, because the cable companies were not willing to
trust to an automatic action of any sort between the land line and
the cable. It was therefore necessary to show the operator at the
point of junction how signals were to be transmitted. This required
a journey to Port Curno, at the very end of the Land's End, several
miles beyond the terminus of the railway. It was the most old-time
place I ever saw; one might have imagined himself thrown back into the
days of the Lancasters. The thatched inn had a hard stone floor, with
a layer of loose sand scattered over it as a carpet in the bedroom.
My linguistic qualities were put to a severe test in talking with
the landlady. But the cable operators were pleasing and intelligent
young gentlemen, and I had no difficulty in making them understand
how the work was to be done.
The manager of the cable was Sir James Anderson, who had formerly
commanded a Cunard steamship from Boston, and was well known to
the Harvard professors, with whom he was a favorite. I had met
him, or at least seen him, at a meeting of the American Academy ten
years before, where he was introduced by one of his Harvard friends.
After commanding the ship that laid the first Atlantic cable, he was
made manager of the cable line from England to Gibraltar. He gave me
a letter to the head operator at Gibraltar, the celebrated de Sauty.
I say "the celebrated," but may it not be that this appellation can
only suggest the vanity of all human greatness? It just occurs to me
that many of the present generation may not even have heard of the--
Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder,
Holding talk with nations,
immortalized by Holmes in one of his humorously scientific poems.
During the two short weeks that the first Atlantic cable transmitted
its signals, his fame spread over the land, for the moment obscuring
by its brilliancy that of Thomson, Field, and all others who had
taken part in designing and laying the cable. On the breaking down
of the cable he lapsed into his former obscurity. I asked him if he
had ever seen Holmes's production. He replied that he had received a
copy of "The Atlantic Monthly" containing it from the poet himself,
accompanied by a note saying that he might find in it something
of interest. He had been overwhelmed with invitations to continue
his journey from Newfoundland to the United States and lecture on
the cable, but was sensible enough to decline them.
The rest of the story of the telegraphic longitude is short.
The first news which de Sauty had to give me was that the cable was
broken,--just where, he did not know, and would not be able soon to
discover. After the break was located, an unknown period would be
required to raise the cable, find the place, and repair the breach.
The weather, on the day of the eclipse, was more than half cloudy,
so that I did not succeed in making observations of such value as
would justify my waiting indefinitely for the repair of the cable,
and the project of determining the longitude had to be abandoned.