Woman in Science — Women in Astronomy, Part 2

In our day, when all kinds of astronomical apparatus are made by machinery, it is difficult for us to realize what stupendous labor was required to produce those giant telescopes with which the Herschels made their great discoveries and by which they, at the same time, revolutionized the science of the stars.

For they had not only to design and make the specula, but also the mountings of the mirrors as well.

And, in order to obtain the money required for material and workmen, they were obliged to make telescopes for sale.

This meant an immense loss of precious time that would otherwise have been devoted to the study of the heavens.

After long years of struggle, during which the devoted brother and sister overcame countless difficulties of every kind, their condition was somewhat ameliorated by financial aid from the government and by William's appointment to the position of astronomer royal with a salary of L200 a year.

When Sir William Watson heard that this limited sum had been granted by George III to the discoverer of Georgium Sidus--the planet now known as Uranus--he exclaimed, "Never bought monarch honor so cheap."

Shortly afterwards Caroline was appointed as assistant to her brother at a salary of L50 a year.

This we should now consider but a nominal sum, but she managed to live on it.

When she received the first quarterly payment of twelve pounds she wrote in her memoirs, "It was the first money I ever in all my lifetime thought myself to be at liberty to spend to my liking."

Her appointment as assistant to her brother is notable from the fact that she was the first woman in England, if not in the world, to hold such a position in the government service.

Miss Herschel held this official appointment until Sir William's death in 1822. When not acting as her brother's assistant or secretary, she devoted her time to what she quaintly called "minding the heavens."

It was during this period that she made her most important discoveries.

As assistant, however, to so indefatigable an observer as Sir William Herschel, she had but little time for sweeping the heavens, for, when at home, Sir William "was invariably accustomed to carry on his observations until day-break, circumstances permitting, without regard to seasons; it was the business of his assistant to note the clocks and to write down the observations from his dictations as they were made.

Subsequently she assisted in the laborious numerical calculations and reductions, so that it was only during his absence from home or when any other interruption of his regular course of observation occurred that she was able to devote herself to the Newtonian sweeper, which she used to such good purpose.

Besides the eight comets by her discovered, she detected several remarkable nebulae and clusters of stars, previously unnoticed, especially the superb nebulae known as No. 1, Class V, in Sir William Herschel's catalogue.

Long practice taught her to make light of her work.

'An observer at your twenty-foot when sweeping,' she wrote many years after, 'wants nothing but a being who _can_ and _will_ execute his commands with the quickness of lightning; for you will have seen that in many sweeps six or twice six objects have been secured and described in one minute of time.'

"[145] It was her quick, intelligent action, combined with a patience, enthusiasm and powers of endurance that were most extraordinary, that made Caroline Herschel so valuable as an assistant to her brother, and enabled him to achieve the unique position which is his among the world's greatest astronomers.

Had she been able to devote all her time to "minding the heavens," it is certain that she would have made many more discoveries than are now credited to her; but her service to astronomy would have been less than it was as the auxiliary of her illustrious brother.

No two ever did better "teamwork"; no two were ever more devoted to each other or exhibited greater enthusiasm in the task to which they so heroically devoted their lives.

[146] In addition to her arduous and engrossing duties as secretary and assistant to her brother, Caroline found time to prepare a number of works for the press.

Among these were a _Catalogue of Eight Hundred and Sixty Stars Observed by Flamsteed but not Included in the British Catalogue_ and _A General Index of Reference to Every Observation of Every Star in the Above-mentioned British Catalogue_.

She had the honor of having these two works published by the Royal Society.

Another, and a more valuable work, was _The Reduction and Arrangement in the Form of Catalogue, in Zones, of All the Star-Clusters and Nebulae Observed by Sir W.

Herschel in His Sweeps_.

It was for this catalogue that a gold medal was voted to her by the Royal Astronomical Society in 1828--a production that was characterized as "a work of immense labor" and "an extraordinary monument to the unextinguished ardor of a lady of seventy-five in the cause of abstract science."

To her nephew, Sir John Herschel, it proved invaluable, as it supplied the needful data "when he undertook the review of the nebulae of the northern hemisphere."

It was also a fitting prelude to Sir John's _Cape Observations_, a copy of which great work she received from her nephew nearly twenty years subsequently, after he had completed his famous observations of the southern heavens in his observatory at the Cape of Good Hope.

"By a most striking and happy coincidence," writes Mrs. John Herschel, "she, whose unflagging toil had so greatly contributed to its successful prosecution in the hands of her beloved brother, lived to witness its triumphant termination through the no less persistent industry and strenuous labor of his son; and her last days were crowned by the possession of the work which brought to its glorious conclusion Sir William Herschel's vast undertaking--_The Survey of the Heavens_."

That Miss Herschel's labors in the cause of astronomy were appreciated by her contemporaries is evidenced by the honors of which she was the recipient.

The first of these honors came in the form of a gold medal, unanimously awarded by the Royal Astronomical Society for her reduction of twenty-five hundred nebulae "discovered by her illustrious brother, which may be considered as the completion of a series of exertions probably unparalleled either in magnitude or importance in the annals of astronomical labor."

It was on this occasion, when referring to the immensity of the task which Sir William Herschel had undertaken, that the vice-president of the society paid a deserving tribute to the great astronomer's devoted sister, in which is found the following statement: "Miss Herschel it was who by right acted as his amanuensis; she it was whose pen conveyed to paper his observations as they issued from his lips; she it was who noted the right ascensions and polar distances of the objects observed; she it was who, having passed the night near the instrument, took the rough manuscripts to her cottage at the dawn of day and produced a fair copy of the night's work on the following morning;

she it was who planned the labor of each succeeding night; she it was who reduced every observation, made every calculation; she it was who arranged everything in systematic order; and she it was who helped him to obtain his imperishable name."

[147] Besides this gold medal from the Royal Astronomical Society, Miss Herschel also received two others, one from the King of Denmark and the other from the King of Prussia.

The latter was accompanied by a most eulogistic letter from Alexander von Humboldt, who informed her that the medal was awarded her "in recognition of the valuable services rendered by her as the fellow worker of her immortal brother, Sir William Herschel, by discoveries, observations and laborious calculations."

In 1835, when she was eighty-five years of age, Miss Herschel had the signal honor of being elected, along with Mrs. Somerville, an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society.

As they were the first two women in England to receive such recognition for their contributions to science, it seems desirable to reproduce here an extract from the report of the council of the society regarding the bestowal of an honor which marked so distinct a change in England of the attitude that should be taken toward women who excelled in intellectual achievements.

The extract reads as follows: "Your council has no small pleasure in recommending that the names of two ladies distinguished in different walks of astronomy be placed on the list of honorary members.

On the propriety of such a step, in an astronomical point of view, there can be but one voice; and your council is of the opinion that the time is gone by when either feeling or prejudice, by whichever name it may be proper to call it, should be allowed to interfere with the payment of a well-earned tribute of respect.

Your council has hitherto felt that, whatever might be its own sentiment on the subject, or however able and willing it might be to defend such a measure, it had no right to place the name of a lady in a position the propriety of which might be contested, though upon what it might consider narrow grounds and false principles.

But your council has no fear that such a difference could now take place between any men whose opinion could avail to guide the society at large; and, abandoning compliment on the one hand and false delicacy on the other, submits that, while the tests of astronomical merit should in no case be applied to the works of a woman less severely than to those of a man, the sex of the former should no longer be an obstacle to her receiving any acknowledgment which might be held due to the latter.

And your council, therefore, recommends this meeting to add to the list of honorary members the names of Miss Caroline Herschel and Mrs. Somerville, of whose astronomical knowledge, and of the utility of the ends to which it has been applied, it is not necessary to recount the proofs."

[148] Three years after this splendid recognition of Miss Herschel's astronomical labors she was elected an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy.

But exceptional as were the honors conferred on her by sovereigns and learned societies, none of them afforded her the extreme satisfaction that she experienced on the receipt of a copy, shortly before her death, of her nephew's epochal _Cape Observations_; for, as has well been said, "nothing in the power of man to bestow could have given such pleasure on her death-bed as this last crowning completion of her brother's work."

We are told that a copy, just from the press, of his immortal work, _De Orbium Celestium Revolutionibus_, in which he had established the heliocentric theory of the planetary system, was placed in the hands of Copernicus on the day of his death, just a few hours before he expired.

He seemed conscious of what it was; but, after touching it and contemplating it for a moment, he lapsed into a state of insensibility which soon terminated in death.

With Miss Herschel the case was different.

Although in her ninety-seventh year, she still retained possession of all her faculties and was fully able to appreciate the volume which told of the crowning of her brother's life work--a volume which must have given her additional satisfaction when she recalled her fifty years of loyal service at her brother's side as his associate and ministering angel in the greatest work ever undertaken by a single man in the history of astronomy.

Caroline Herschel died at the advanced age of ninety-seven years and ten months, retaining to the last her interest in astronomy which had occupied her mind for more than three-quarters of a century.

Her epitaph, composed by herself, is engraved on a heavy stone slab which covers her grave and contains the following words: "The eyes of her who is glorified were here below turned to the starry heavens.

Her own discoveries of comets and her participation in the immortal labors of her brother, William Herschel, bear witness of this to future ages."

Space precludes any extended reference to Miss Herschel's distinguished associate in the Royal Astronomical Society, Mrs. Somerville, whose masterly translation and exposition of Laplace's _Mecanique Celeste_ secured for her so enviable a place among the mathematicians of her time, and placed all English students of mathematical astronomy under such deep obligations.

It is true that she ever manifested a lively interest in celestial phenomena; but it is rather as a mathematician than as an astronomer that she will be remembered by the devotees of science.

The first American woman to win distinction in astronomy was Miss Maria Mitchell.

Born in the island of Nantucket in 1818, she, at an early age, displayed remarkable talent for astronomy and mathematics.

Her first instructor was her father, who, besides being a school teacher, had from his youth been an enthusiastic student of astronomy, and that, too, at a time when very little attention was given to its study in this country, and when the observatory of Harvard College consisted of only a little projection to an old mansion in Cambridge, in which there was a small telescope.

At the age of thirteen little Maria counted seconds by the chronometer for her father while he observed the annular eclipse of the sun in 1831;

and from that time on she was his assiduous co-worker in the study of the heavens.

After teaching school for some years, she became the librarian of the Nantucket Atheneum, a position which she held for nearly twenty years.

Here she continued the study of her favorite science, and read all the books on astronomy which she could obtain.

It was during this period that she read Bowditch's translation of Laplace's _Mecanique Celeste_ and Gauss's _Theoria Motus Corporum Caelestium_ in the original.

On the evening of October 1, 1847, she was the discoverer of a comet that attracted great attention because it secured for her a medal offered by the King of Denmark in 1831 for the first one who should discover a telescopic comet.

The same comet was observed by Father de Vico in Rome two days subsequently, by Dawes in England on October seventh, and by Madame Ruemker, wife of the director of the observatory of Hamburg, on the eleventh of the same month.

As there was no Atlantic cable in those days, it was not known who was the fortunate winner of the prize until nearly a year afterward, when word was received from Denmark announcing that the priority of Miss Mitchell's discovery had been recognized and that she would be the recipient of the prize, which, for a while, it was thought would go to De Vico or Madame Ruemker.

[149] In 1849 Miss Mitchell was appointed a compiler for the _Nautical Almanac_, a position she held for nineteen years.

During the same period she was employed by the United States Coast Survey.

When Vassar College was opened in 1865 for the higher education of women, Miss Mitchell was called to fill the chair of astronomy and to be the first director of the observatory.

In this position she soon succeeded in giving astronomy a prominence that it never had had before in any other college for women, and in but few for men.

Miss Mitchell was a member of several learned societies and the author of a number of papers containing the results of her observations on Jupiter and Saturn and their satellites.

But she is notable chiefly for being the first woman astronomer in the United States and for training up a number of young women who have followed in her footsteps as enthusiastic astronomers.

She held her position at Vassar until 1889, when she died, a few months before her seventy-first birthday.

Since the pioneer days of Miss Caroline Herschel, the number of women throughout the world who have achieved distinction in astronomy has rapidly augmented.

One of the most noted of these was Caterina Scarpellini, niece of Feliciano Scarpellini, professor of astronomy in Rome, restorer of the Academy of the Lyncei, and founder of the Capitoline Observatory.

Born in 1808, she manifested at an early age a decided taste for astronomy, which was carefully developed by her uncle.

She it was who organized the Meteorologico Ozonometric station in Rome and edited its monthly bulletin.

She exhibited a special interest in shooting stars and prepared the first catalogue of these meteors observed in Italy.

In 1854 she discovered a comet.

She has also left valuable studies on the probable influence of the moon on earthquakes--studies which brought her distinction from several of the learned societies of Europe.

In 1872 the Italian government decreed her a gold medal for her statistical labors in science.

Since her death her countrymen have recognized the value of her contributions to science by erecting a statue to her memory.

Another woman who has won enduring fame in the annals of astronomy is Miss Dorothea Klumpke, of San Francisco.

While yet quite young, she and her sisters were taken to Europe to be educated.

There she soon became proficient in a number of languages, and then devoted herself to the study of mathematics and astronomy.

After securing her baccalaureate and licentiate in Paris, she applied for admission as a student to the Paris observatory.

"The directors of the observatory consulted the statutes.

No woman had hitherto proposed herself as a colleague, but there was no rule opposing it.

They themselves approved, and gave her a telescope to make her own observations.

After a time she completed the work begun by Mme.

Kovalevsky on the rings of Saturn, which she made the subject of her thesis, and, when she had become Doctor of Science, she was given a decoration by the Institute and made an _Officier de l'Academie_."

After Miss Klumpke had brilliantly defended her thesis in the Sorbonne, M.

Darboux, the president of the jury, complimented the young American doctor on her splendid work and concluded a notable address in her honor in the following laudatory words: "The great names of Galileo, of Huyghens, of Cassini, of Laplace, without speaking of those of my illustrious colleagues and friends, are attached to the history of every serious step forward made in this attractive and difficult theory of Saturn's rings.

Your work constitutes another valuable contribution to the same subject and places you in an honorable rank beside those women who have consecrated themselves to the study of mathematics.

In the last century Maria Agnesi gave us a treatise on the differential and integral calculus.

Since then Sophie Germain, as remarkable for her literary and philosophical talent as for her faculty for mathematics, won the esteem of the great geometricians who honored our country at the commencement of this century.

It is but a few years since the Academy awarded one of its most beautiful prizes which will place the name of Mme.

Kovalevsky beside those of Euler and Lagrange in the history of discoveries relative to the theory of the movement of a solid body about a fixed point....

And you, mademoiselle, your thesis is the first which a woman has presented and successfully defended before our faculty for the degree of doctor in mathematics.

You worthily open the way, and the faculty unanimously makes haste to declare you worthy of obtaining the degree of doctor."

Besides her thesis just referred to, Miss Klumpke is the author of numerous communications to scientific journals and learned societies regarding her researches on the spectra of stars and meteorites and other allied subjects.

For many years she was at the head of the bureau in the Paris Observatory for measuring the photographic plates that are to be used in the large catalogue of stars and map of the heavens which are to constitute the crowning achievements of the International Astronomical Congress.

She was the first woman to be elected a member of the Astronomical Society of France, and the character of her work as an observer as well as a computer has given her an enviable position among the astronomers of the world.

[150] In America another woman has won renown among astronomers by successfully executing the same kind of work as was entrusted to Miss Dorothea Klumpke in Paris.

For many years Mrs. W.

Fleming, with her large corps of women assistants, had charge of the immense collection of astronomical photographs in the Observatory of Harvard University.

To her and her staff were assigned the reductions and measurements of the photographic and photometric work done in Cambridge and Arequipa, Peru.

She was singularly successful in her studies of photographic plates and made many discoveries which astronomers regard of the greatest importance.

By such studies she and her assistants detected many new nebulae, double and variable stars, besides spectra of different types and of rare interest.

In addition to this they examined and classified tens of thousands of photographs of stellar spectra, a labor which involved countless details of reduction and measurements of exceeding delicacy and skill.

A complete list of the women who, during the past half century, have devoted themselves to the study of astronomy and who have contributed to its advancement by their observations and writings would be a very long one.

Among those, however, whose labors have attracted special notice, mention must be made of the Misses Antonia C. Maury, Florence Cushman, Louisa D. Wells, Mabel C. Stephens, Eva F. Leland, Anna Winlock, Annie J.

Cannon and Henrietta S. Leavitt, all of whom are on the staff of the Harvard Observatory.

Then, too, there are many women who occupy important positions as professors or assistant professors in our colleges and universities.

Chief among these in the United States are Sarah F. Whiting, of Wellesley; Mary W. Whitney, of Vassar; Mary E. Boyd, of Smith; Susan Cunningham, of Swarthmore, and Annie S. Young, of Mt. Holyoke.

Nor must we forget such able computers as Mrs. Margaretta Palmer, of Yale, and Miss Hanna Mace, the clever assistant of the late Simon Newcomb in the Naval Observatory in Washington.

In the Old World among the women who, during the last few decades, have materially contributed to the progress of astronomy, either as observers and computers or as writers, are Miss Alice Everett, who has done splendid work in the observatories of Greenwich and Potsdam, Misses M. A.

Orr, Mary Ashley, Alice Brown, Mary Proctor--daughter of the late astronomer, R. A.

Proctor--Agnes M. and Ellen M. Clerke, and Lady Huggins, of England; Mmes.

Jansen, Faye, and Flammarion, in France; the Countess Bobinski, in Russia; and Miss Pogson, in the Observatory of Madras, India.

In conclusion, it is but just to observe that women's work in astronomy has by no means been confined to their contributions as observers, writers and computers.

Reference must also be made to the financial aid which they have given to various observatories and learned societies for the furtherance of astronomical research both in the New and the Old World.

It must suffice here to recall the endowment at Harvard University of the Henry Draper Memorial, by Mrs. Henry Draper, in order that the work of photographing stellar spectra, which occupied her husband's later years, might be continued under the most favorable auspices, and the munificent sum of fifty thousand dollars given by Miss C.

Bruce, of New York, for the construction of a large telescope especially designed for photographing faint stars and nebulae.

The photographs taken with this instrument will be used in the preparation of the great chart of the heavens which is to be the joint production of the chief observatories of the world.

FOOTNOTES:

[134] Cf.

the preceding chapter, p. 140. See also _Histoire de l'Astronomie Ancienne_, Tom.

I, p. 317, par.

M.

Delambre, Paris, 1817. [135] "Calor etiam solis in hieme maior est sub terra quam super terram, quod si tunc frigus tantum esset sub terra quam super terram, vel si in aestate calor tantus esset sub terra quantus est super terram, de immoderatione ista terra tota scinderetur."

_Hildegardis Causae et Curae_, p. 7, Lipsiae, 1903. [136] _Commentaire de Theon d'Alexandrie_, p. X, translated by the Abbe Halma, Paris, 1882. [137] "Enfin de leur faire connoistre qu'elles ne sont pas incapable de l'estude, si elles s'en vouloient donner la peine puisqu'entre le cerveau d'une femme et celui d'un homme il n'y a aucune difference."

Cf.

_Journal de Savans_, Tom.

III, p. 304, a Amsterdam, 1687. [138] D'ou vient qu'elle a l'oeil trouble et le teint si terni?

C'est que sur le calcul, dit-on, de Cassini, Un astrolabe a la main, elle a, dans la gouttiere, A suivre Jupiter passe la nuit entiere.

[139] "Celebre inter observatores hujus aevi nomen adeptus est Godfredus Kirchius, astronomus nuper regius in Societate Scienciarum Berlinensi;

mense Julio A, 1710 mortuus.

Ejus vidua, Maria Magdalena Winckelmannia, non minore in observando et calculo astronomico dexteritate pollet, ac in utroque labore maritum, cum viveret, fideliter juvit ...

quod laudi ducitur foeminae ea animo comprehendisse, quae sine ingenii vi studiique assiduitate non comprehenduntur," _Acta Eruditorum_, pp. 78, 79, Lipsiae, 1712. [140] _Preface Historique_ to _Principes Mathematiques de la Philosophie Naturelle_ par feue Madame la Marquise du Chastellet, Tom.

I, p. V,

Paris, 1759. [141] _The Unpublished Correspondence of Madame du Deffand_, Vol. I, pp. 202-203, London, 1810. [142] Mme.

du Deffand's venomous letter, somewhat abridged, reads as follows: "Imagine a tall, hard and withered woman, narrow-chested, with large limbs, enormous feet, a very small head, a thin face, a pointed nose, two small sea-green eyes, her color dark, her complexion florid, her mouth flat, her teeth set far apart and very much decayed; there is the figure of the beautiful Emilie, a figure with which she is so well pleased that she spares nothing for the sake of setting it off.

Her manner of dressing her hair, her adornments, her top-knots, her jewelry, all are in profusion; but, as she wishes to be lovely in spite of nature, and as she wishes to appear magnificent in spite of fortune, she is obliged, in order to obtain superfluities, to go without necessaries such as under-garments and other trifles.

"She was born with sufficient intellect, and the desire to appear as though she had a great deal made her prefer to study the most abstract sciences rather than more general and pleasant branches of knowledge.

She thought she would gain a greater reputation by this peculiarity and a more decided superiority over other women.

"She did not limit herself to this ambition.

She wished to be a princess as well, and she became so, not by the grace of God nor by that of the King, but by her own act.

This absurdity went on like the others.

One became accustomed to regard her as a princess of the theatre, and one almost forgot that she was a woman of rank.

"Madame worked so hard to appear what she was not that no one knew what she really was.

Even her faults were perhaps not natural.

They may have had something to do with her pretensions, her want of respect with regard to the state of princess, her dullness in that of _savante_, and her stupidity in that of a _jolie femme_.

"However much of a celebrity Mme.

du Chatelet may be, she would not be satisfied if she were not celebrated, and that is what she desired in becoming the friend of M. de Voltaire.

To him she owes the _eclat_ of her life, and it is to him that she will owe immortality."

See _Lettres de la Marquise du Deffand a Horace Walpole_, Tom.

I, pp. 200-201, Paris, 1824. As a contrast to this atrocious caricature, it is but due to the memory of Mme.

du Chatelet to give her portrait by Voltaire, to whom she was ever the beautiful, the charming Urania, the "Vaste et puissante genie, Minerve de la France, immortelle Emilie."

It is contained in the following verses: "L'esprit sublime et la delicatesse, L'oubli charmante de sa propre beaute L'amitie tendre et l'amour emporte Sont les attraits de ma belle maitresse."

If the whole truth were known, it would, doubtless, be found somewhere between the above extreme and contradictory views, and the cause of the caustic statements of Mesdames de Stael and du Deffand would probably be found to be quite accurately expressed in the first part of Voltaire's _Epistle on Calumny_, which was written about the beginning of his particular relationship with "the divine Emilie."

The first lines of this epistle, as translated by Smollett, are: "Since beautiful, 'twill be your fate, Emelia, to incur much hate;

Almost one-half of human race Will even curse you to your face;

Possesst of genius, noblest fire, With fear you will each breast inspire;

As you too easily confide, You'll often be betrayed, belied;

You ne'er of virtue made parade, To hypocrites no court you've paid, Therefore, of Calumny beware, Foe to the virtuous and the fair."

[143] In his work on _Comets_, Clairaut at first gave Mme.

Lepaute full credit for her work which had been of such inestimable service to himself; but, in order to gratify a woman who, having pretensions without knowledge, was very jealous of the superior attainments of Mme.

Lepaute, he had the weakness subsequently to suppress his generous tribute to merit.

Commenting on this strange conduct of his assistant, Lalande expresses himself as follows: "We know that it is not rare to see ordinary women depreciate those who have knowledge, tax them with pedantry and contest their merit in order to avenge themselves upon them for their superiority.

The latter are so few in number that the others have almost succeeded in making them conceal their acquirements."

[144] _Bibliographie Astronomique_, pp. 676-687, par Jerome de la Lande, Paris, 1803. [145] _Memoirs and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel_, p. 144, by Mrs. John Herschel, London, 1879. [146] So sensitive was Miss Herschel in her old age regarding the reputation of her brother, William, who had always been her idol and the one in whom she had concentrated all her affection, that she came to look askance at every person and thing that seemed calculated to dull the glory of his achievements.

Thus her niece, in writing to Sir John Herschel, after her death, declares: "She looked upon progress in science as so much detraction from her brother's fame; and, even your investigations would have become a source of estrangement had she been with you."

In a letter to Sir John Herschel, written four years before her death, she exhibits, in an amusing fashion, her jealous spirit anent the great telescope of Lord Rosse.

"They talk of nothing here at the clubs," she writes, "but of the great mirror and the great man who made it.

I have but one answer for all--_Der Kerl ist ein Narr_--the fellow is a fool."

Even "Every word said in her own praise seemed to be so much taken away from the honour due to her brother.

She had lived so many years in companionship with a truly great man, and in the presence of the unfathomable depths of the starry heavens, that praise of herself seemed childish exaggeration."

And notwithstanding the honor and recognition which she received from learned men and learned societies for her truly remarkable astronomical labors, her dominant idea was always the same--"I am nothing.

I have done nothing.

All I am, all I know, I owe to my brother.

I am only a tool which he shaped to his use--a well-trained puppy-dog would have done as much."

Op.

cit.

, pp. IX, 335 and 346. [147] Op.

cit.

, p. 224. [148] _Memoirs and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel_, ut.

sup.

, pp. 226-227. [149] _Maria Mitchell, Life, Letters and Journals_, compiled by Phebe Mitchell Kendall, p. 267 et seq.

, Boston, 1896. [150] Miss Klumpke, the reader may be interested in knowing, belongs to a singularly gifted family.

Her sister, Augusta, is a distinguished physician and an authority on nervous diseases.

Hers is the glory to be the first woman permitted, after an exceptionally severe examination, to serve as _interne_ in the Paris hospitals.

Julia, her youngest sister, who achieved distinction as a violinist with Ysaye, was one of the first to pass the examination required of women entering the Paris _Lycees_, while Anna, the eldest, has won fame as an artist, and as the friend, heiress and executrix of France's famous daughter, Rosa Bonheur.