Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/568

550 Miss Mitchell began to observe the various colors of the stars in 1853, but nothing in her remarks concerning the phenomenon indicates that she had any anticipation of the explanations which later astronomers have offered for it. Her appreciation of it was largely æsthetic, but, as Mr. Bishop had found the blue stars generally small, she thought we might assume "that the blue stars are faint ones, and probably distant ones. But as not all faint stars or distant ones are blue, it shows that there is a real difference. . . . From age to age the colors of some of the prominent stars have certainly changed. This would seem more likely to be from change of place than of physical constitution. Nothing comes out more clearly in astronomical observations than the immense activity of the universe. ‘All change, no loss, ’tis revolution all.’" Then she was led to remark that all observations of this kind are peculiarly adapted to women. "Indeed, all astronomical observing seems to be so fitted. The training of a girl fits her for delicate work. The touch of her fingers upon the delicate screws of an astronomical instrument might become wonderfully accurate in results; a woman's eyes are trained to nicety of color. . . . Then comes in the girl's habit of patient and quiet work, peculiarly fitted to routine observations. The girl who can stitch from morning to night would find two or three hours in the observatory a relief."

The chief scientific incident recorded of Miss Mitchell's second European tour (1873) is her visit to the observatory at Pulkova, where the second Struve—Otto—was director. Her Russian journal contains some keen comparative observations concerning civilization and education in Russia and the United States, not always to the advantage of the United States.

In 1859 Miss Mitchell was presented by the republic of San Marino with the bronze medal of merit, with the ribbon and letters patent signed by the two captains regent. In August, 1869, she went with several of her Vassar students to Burlington, Iowa, to observe the total eclipse of the sun, and published a popular article on the subject in the magazine Hours at Home. Her scientific record of the observation was published in Prof. Coffin's report. In 1878 she went to Denver to observe the eclipse. Her observing party of five ladies besides herself had their special places at the three telescopes as counters or as artists, and made the observations in silence. "Great," she says," is the self-denial of those who follow science. Those who look through telescopes at the time of a total eclipse are martyrs; they severely deny themselves. The persons who can say that they have seen a total eclipse of the sun are those who rely upon their eyes. My aids, who touched no glasses, had a season of rare enjoyment."

In June, 1881, while going to Providence in a steamboat, she