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attainments; and her achievements with the telescope, while important, were made when that instrument was but a toy compared with the great modern machines, whose movable portions alone sometimes weigh three tons. The spectroscope and camera were just assuming importance in astronomy as her term in Vassar was drawing to a close. As the practical astronomy had given way to a theoretical astronomy, so this in turn was receding before the tremendous strides of the new descriptive astronomy-the science that tells of what the planets are Imade and what are the conditions on their surfaces. And in this new era of "astro-physics," as it is called, women have a field which can never be occupied by men. Their natural carefulness, system, caution, accuracy, and love of detail, have made them indispensable in completing our knowledge of the constitution and distribution of the stars. Coupled with the advance of modern

names of many

astro-physics, are the brilliant women of to-day. Mrs. A. S. D. Maunder, wife of the noted scientist E. Walter Maunder, Superintendent of the Solar Department of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, has done individual work of much importance in observing the sun-spots and in determining the physical condition of our source of light and heat.

She has at least one spectacular achievement to her credit. While in India, in January, 1898, she secured for the first time in the history of astronomy a photograph of the outermost streamers of the corona. The sun throws out great jets of fire and burning gases, thousands of miles long and radiating from every part of its surface. The intense brightness of the sun itself, however, hides them from the eye excepting when the face of the sun is hidden in total eclipse. Then, for a few brief moments at the most, these gorgeous, writhing tongues of flame burst into view.

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MRS. E. WALTER MAUNDER, AT NORTHWEST RIVER, LABRADOR.

Her hand is resting on the same instrument with which she secured in India in 1898 the first photograph ever taken of the outermost coronal streamers. View taken at Canadian Eclipse Station, Labrador, August 30, 1905, after totality. The eclipse flag in background, bearing the emblem of the moon's disc, with surrounding corona, was lowered to half-mast in token of disappointment because of the total obscuration of the eclipse by clouds during its critical stage.

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the Journal of the British Astronomical Association.

Miss Mary Proctor, daughter of Sir R. A. Proctor of England, has done much to popularize the subject by lectures. Miss Agnes Clerke has become famous through her numerous books and magazine articles on astronomy. She has been elected an honorary Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. Lady Huggins, wife of Sir William Huggins, has done some brilliant work in spectrum analysis, and is also an honorary Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. Madame Ceraski and Rose O'Halloran

omers.

The wife of Prof. David P. Todd, Director of the Observatory at Amherst College, Massachusetts, she has accompanied her husband on several eclipse expeditions; and her book "Corona and Coronet" is a charming description of her last trip to Japan, in 1896, to view the solar eclipse. She published in 1394 a volume on "Total Eclipses of the Sun," which is generally conceded to be an authority on the subject. Mrs. Todd is not only a prominent astronomer, but an enthusiastic club woman and society leader.

And so, as the list lengthens, we per

ceive how singularly well adapted women are to modern astronomical work. Astronomy, the oldest of the sciences, was the last to add a laboratory to its complement of working equipment. It is only of late years that the mechanical and physical end of the science has been perfected so as to require constant laboratory work, and it is in this department of astronomy that women find their special field. At Harvard Observatory are the best and most complete arrangements for this branch, and it is there that the largest staff of women astronomers is employed. They have one large fireproof building given over entirely to astronomical photographs, some 200,000 in number, covering the whole range of the heavens in both northern and southern skies.

This vast storehouse of knowledge, a very encyclopedia of the heavens, has been made accessible by means of an elaborate index, with cross-references, etc., the work of Miss Annie J. Cannon. About a year ago, this young woman announced the discovery of a new variable star. She had observed the star as far back as 1898, but it took seven years before enough data could be secured positively to announce its discovery as a new

star.

The Curator of Astronomical Photographs at Harvard Observatory, Mrs. W. Paton Fleming, is one of the world's most noted astronomers. New photographs of the heavens are constantly being made; and Mrs. Fleming and her corps of fifteen women assistants examine these photographs minutely, checking off known stars, looking for new ones, classifying them, etc. In this way, Mrs. Fleming has the record of discovering more stars than any other person in all the history of astronomy, eight new worlds having been added to our knowledge of the universe through her investigations. She has also prepared the Draper Catalogue, in which over 10,000 stars are classified. She has found 84 new fifth-type stars, while only fifteen have been discovered by all the other astronomers in the world. She has also located new variable stars. This brilliant woman is of Scotch birth, and has been connected with Harvard Observatory since about 1880-the only woman who

has ever been given an official position at Harvard.

Miss Henrietta Swan Leavitt, one of Mrs. Fleming's assistants, has also won fame by discovering some 65 new variables through painstaking examinations of photographic plates.

Through these discoveries with the spectroscope, we have found new stars, learned something of their constitution, and ascertained whether they are moving toward or from the earth. By the photograph a permanent record of the skies at all times is secured; a map of the heavens is given for constant reference, either in daylight or at night; and thousands of stars are caught by the sensitive film of the photographic plate which cannot be seen through the most powerful telescopes.

To have discovered more stars than anyone else in the world, is perhaps a great record from an astronomical standpoint; but to have been proposed to while making an astronomical voyage in a balloon, is a spectacular record which no woman astronomer can duplicate among

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MISS DOROTHEA KLUMPKE, OF THE PARIS OBSERVATORY. A San Francisco girl who has achieved success, renown, and romance in foreign lands.

her varied experiences. The exploit of Miss Dorothea Klumpke in the fall of 1901 has made her probably the most widely noted woman astronomer in the world. Photographing the stars from a balloon was one of the daring tasks she took upon herself, and it was on such an occasion that a noted English astronomer, Dr. Isaac Roberts, was captivated by her superior ability and grace.

Miss Klumpke was born in San Francisco, but was taken to Europe by her mother, who wished her daughters to have the best of opportunities. While in Germany, an old professor who took great interest in her used to lend her a small telescope, and it was then that she first formed her ambition to be an astronomer. After accomplishing some brilliant work in mathematics, she applied to the Directors of the Paris Observatory for admittance as a colleague. They hesitated to establish a precedent by admitting a woman; but they could find no rule on the books against it, so they gave her charge of a small telescope. She immediately started to work on her essay, which had to be written from indepen

dent investigation and maintained before all the astronomers and mathematicians of the Observatory before she could be made a Fellow of the Observatory. She prepared a masterly thesis on the rings of Saturn, and read it before the Academy, upholding its conclusions and mathematical processes before them with the dignity. and confidence of a great scientist. They could do nothing but admit her; and in the speech conferring upon her the title. of Officier de l'Académic, she was highly complimented by the President as being the only woman who had ever successfully maintained a thesis before that learned body.

She was assigned the tremendous task of in

dexing and cataloguing all the stars up to the fourteenth magnitude, by the International Astronomical Congress, and given four assistants to carry on the work. In 1899 she took her first trip in a balloon to observe a predicted meteoric shower; and ever since that time a large part of her work has been in taking photographs of the heavens from a balloon. Her courage and daring, as well as care

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