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Rh astronomy had always been a favorite subject with Professor Whitney, and he had published as early as 1860 his commentary and notes on the Sūrya-Siddhānta. Dr. James Burgess has well brought out in his Notes on Hindu Astronomy the value and interest of that work, when he says that it is a model of careful annotation and has placed within the reach of all who are interested in the subject a complete outline of Hindu methods of astronomical calculation, together with a clear exposition of the theories on which they are based, and their relations to European science.

In descending from the Vedas, his first love, to the Vedān̄gas, Professor Whitney took up another important branch of Hindu science besides astronomy. This was the science of phonetics, which is so ably discussed in the Prātiçākhyas, two of which were edited and translated by Whitney in 1862 and 1871. His successful labors in that field may have served him as a preparation for his Sanskrit Grammar, his principal work, towards which all his various studies and labors may be said to have converged. His edition of the Atharva-Veda, with which he had introduced himself so successfully as a Sanskrit scholar, his Prātiçākhyas, his contributions to the Sanskrit Dictionary jointly edited by Boehtlingk-Roth, his labors in the field of linguistic science, these and his other achievements must have caused him to appear the fittest person to be entrusted with the difficult and responsible task of approaching the Sanskrit language from a new point of view, and writing a Sanskrit Grammar for the well-known Library of Indo-European Grammars. I remember w^ell the enthusiasm with which his engagement to do so was greeted by Sanskrit scholars in Germany, myself among the number. It was in 1875, and I had just then repeatedly met Whitney both in Germany and England, my veneration for the man and scholar having been enhanced, I need hardly say, by personal acquaintance. He set to work with his wonted energy and produced after four years' work the well-known lucid and elaborate volume, which has fully realized the expectations entertained of it, and materially aided the progress of Sanskrit and linguistic studies. One of the principal new features of Whitney's Sanskrit Grammar, the