Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/126

 104 HISTORY OF THE [1840-50 The Small Achievement. But we were still in the period of that long blight on English mathematics, following Newton's flights, which were nowhere more wonderful than in pure mathematics. Whether from anti- Continental feeling, or from national obstinacy, or the idea that the tangible methods of geometry offered the sure slow road to truth, our workers crippled themselves. The period of Euler, d'Alembert, Legendre, Lagrange, Laplace, Abel, Cauchy, Jacobi, Gauss, passed over their heads almost without attracting their remark. Oxford and Cambridge were no exception. Thomas Young was not to the taste of Professor Vince : " What do you think of a man writing on mechanics who does not understand the principle of the coach- wheel ? " Professor Vince asked. I have often wondered what is the principle of the coach-wheel. No doubt it is enshrined in many a problem paper of the period ; it is sufficient, however, that it excluded from that gentleman's field of view matters we have come to think more important. The old Mathematical Society was no worse than this ; the pathetic thing is that though unhampered by interest or tradition, it was no better. The most celebrated names that it can claim are Dollond and Thomas Simpson ; it had no luck in drawing to its hearth any spark of native genius, or even in forming itself a centre for understanding the wonderful structure which mathe- matics had become. Other times, other modes. We can close on a different note. We now have as guests in the Society's rooms another London Mathematical Society, whose members are more able to criticise astronomers for backward methods and deficient analysis in mathematics than they are likely to lay themselves open to that charge. American Astronomers. One of the features of this decade is the definite entry of American Observatories into the Society's field of view. In 1847 the Council writes : " It has often been a matter of regret, and sometimes a ground for reproach, that the vast country of the United States has shown so little interest in the science of astronomy. This apathy, at any rate, exists no longer. Observa- tories fully equipped have been erected at many places." And they proceed to instance the equipment of the Naval Observatory, Washington, and that of Cambridge University, U.S. For the latter, " an equatoreal instrument, similar in size and mounting to that of Pulkowa, is now constructing by Merz, of Munich, we pre- sume at the cost of the state of Massachusetts." But in this surmise they were wrong ; the 1 5-inch equatoreal of Harvard College Observatory was provided at the cost of the College and by private subscriptions. It was erected in 1847 and immediately established itself under W. C. Bond, running a curious race of rivalry with