Our Astronomical Column

Abstract

ASTRONOMY AT THE WORLD'S FAIR.—The astronomical exhibits at Chicago seem to be fairly representative of the state of astronomical science at the present day, but they are too much scattered about in the different buildings for a proper study of them to be made. Among many of the more interesting exhibits we may mention the following: Fine collection of astronomical photographs, made by the Harvard College Observatory, which included those of stellar spectra nebulæ and clusters, and of a portion of the lunar surface enlarged over one thousand diameters. Dr. Chandler's four inch almacantar, the collections of Draper and Langley, and the diffracion gratings and photographs of spectra by Prof. Rowland, the last of which formed the Johns Hopkins University exhibit. Specimens of the famous Jena optical glass, Kirchhoft's original spectroscope, Brill's mathematical model, and the magnetic apparatus of Gauss and Weber form part of the German Educational exhibit. In the English exhibit are found many astronomical photographs by Roberts, Gill, and others; others from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, Boeddicker's Milky Way drawings, and the fine five-foot glass speculum by Dr. Common. Among some of the exhibits of the American astronomical instrument makers, we are glad to note the mounting of the great forty-inch Yerkes telescope by Warner and Swasey, who exhibit also some minor instruments. J. A. Brashear exhibits the stellar spectroscope for the Yerkes telescope, eighteen-inch and fifteen-inch objectives, gratings, &c. Among G. N. Saegmuller's (of Washington) exhibits is a four-inch steel meridian circle. Two twenty-three-inch discs of the celebrated Jena glass are shown by Schott and Genossen, of Jena, in addition to other specimens of optical glass. In the Cape Colony exhibit Dr. Gill's interesting stellar photographs are prominent, while the Lick Observatory display is housed in the educational department of the California State building, and, as Science says, is “strangely enough mixed up with the Kindergarten exhibit there.” The U.S. Government building contains interesting apparatus as used in the Coast Survey, while the Naval Observatory shows a small observatory with several instruments.