L ASTRONOMY IN CANADA' By Dr. OTTO KLOTZ DIRECTOR OF THE DOMINION OBSERVATORY, OTTAWA ET me first extend greetings from my native country Canada to our nearest and closest neighbor and friend-you of the United States. Although two flags wave over our countries, there is only one celestial vault to cover us; the same stars smile on you as on us, and we both appeal to them to help solve the riddle of the universe. Our aims and our aspirations are, I think, the samethe uplift of our people, the utilization of all our resources for the common weal, the widest distribution of the amenities of life, but all founded on the eternal gospel of work. I think we will find that the origin of all national observatories has been to supply a distinct want or need in the affairs of the nation concerned. So it was with the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and so it was with us. You will recall that it was essentially the question of determining longitude at sea that decided Charles II-in spite of the evil reputation he earned for himself-to command the Rev. John Flamsteed "to apply himself with care and diligence to improve the Table of the positions of the Fixed Stars and Moon to find out the much desired Longitude at Sea, for the perfecting the Art of Navigation." And so was founded the Royal Observatory in 1675. No thoughts of abstract science were in the minds of its founders. It was founded for the benefit of the Royal Navy, and that is its first object to the present day, although its field of activity has vastly expanded and comprises many lines of research. Now a few words as to the origin of the Dominion Observatory, the national observatory of Canada. The original Dominion of Canada as born on the 1st of July, 1867, comprised the four provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Lower and Upper Canada, or Quebec and Ontario. In 1871 British Columbia entered the Dominion, and amongst the terms of federation was that Canada was to build a railway to and through the province to the Pacific Ocean, while British Columbia on her part would convey to the Dominion all lands held by the Crown within 20 miles of the contemplated railway. I may say here that there 1 Subject matter given in an illustrated ex-tempore address before the Academy of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn, on February 28, 1922. was some difference of opinion as to what 20 miles meant along a naturally very sinuous railway of over 500 miles through a sea of mountains. There was of course only one correct interpretation, and that was the area covered or swept by a 20 mile long arm attached at right angles to each side of a moving train. It was decided by the Dominion Government that the lands to be acquired from British Columbia were to be coordinated with those of the northwest, the survey of which was based on astronomic positions. Although the rectangular system of surveys, the division of lands into sections, townships and ranges was copied from the United States, we in so far improved on it that our system is connected and is a unit, extending from the Lake of the Woods to the Pacific, and from the International Boundary of the 49th parallel to the Arctic Ocean, while in the United States the surveys of the individual states, where the rectangular system applies, are quite independent of each other, and hence lack coordination. May I here, as I have mentioned the 49th parallel, say a word. about its survey, as the astronomer played an important part therein. You know it's so easy for diplomats sitting about a table to decide the fate of countries and their boundaries. With regard to the latter they are often in blissful ignorance of the geography involved or of the people affected. Certainly nothing could look nicer on paper than a parallel of latitude, which has so simple a definition, curving around the earth. Laying it down on the ground, however, is quite another story. The two astronomers engaged in this international work clearly recognized difficulties that might and would arise in observing for latitude and came to an understanding how to deal with the matter. The understanding and a very sensible one-was that the observed latitude was to govern, quite apart from the error that may be involved due to the deflection of the plumb line. The observations themselves, about 50 years ago, being practically devoid of error, were made with present-day accuracy. The line zigzags, responding to the varying attraction or displacements of the zero of the level from normal. The greatest displacements were the ones to the north of 600 feet, due to the attraction of the Cypress Hills; and the other to the south of 800 feet, due to the attraction of the Sweet Grass Hills in Montana close to the boundary. That is, within a distance of less than a hundred miles we had a difference of 1,400 feet in the gravitational effect due to the unequal distribution of matter along the boundary line. This unequal distribution is not always visible as manifested by the hills spoken of; it might be hidden underneath the surface. To return to the story of the evolution of the Dominion Observatory: The lands of that 20-mile railway belt in British Columbia were to be coordinated with the land system of the northwest immediately east of the Rocky Mountains. Meridians or parallels could not be projected over the mountains, so the railway itself on the eve of completion was made a base line by a special and very accurate survey. To secure its geographical position a number of astronomic stations were established along the line, and to them was joined the special railway survey. Thereby every part of the line became known by its geographical coordinates and hence surveys could be started where required for mines, timber or other purpose, and expressed in sections, townships and ranges. Thus was born astronomy, practical astronomy, in Canada as a function of the government. That little lamp lit in 1885 was tenderly cared for, fostered and developed and its usefulness extended so that 20 years later the government built the Dominion Observatory, the national observatory of Canada, fully equipped for astronomical and astrophysical work as well as for some branches in geophysical work-seismology, terrestrial magnetism and gravity, about each of which I shall make some brief remarks. To the general public a dome is a sine quâ non for an observatory, and yet the fundamental work does not require it. By fundamental work I mean the determination of the accurate position of the sun, the moon, the planets and stars. And that is essentially the work of national observatories for the use of navigators, explorers and astronomers engaged in other lines of work. This work is done with the meridian circle. As its name implies, it is mounted in the meridian and is only movable therein. The big telescope, the equatorial that can sweep the whole heavens from its dome, is particularly adapted for answering the question of the little rhyme, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are?" That's it, what you are, not where you are (the meridian circle tells that), but what you are, what gases compose your being, have you a companion, what is your temperature, your mass?-there are queries which the equatorial with its attached spectroscope answers. Our equatorial 15" is at present used exclusively for the determination of radial velocity of stars forming binary systems, by means of the spectroscope. You all know the spectroscope, how the prisms in it break up the light into its constituent rays, each with its particular wave length, to be photographed on a narrow glass plate, together with some standard light. The motion of a star causes its spectrum to be shifted to or from fixed lines or fixed spectrum, depending upon the approach or recession of the star relative to the earth. The principle is the same as the change in pitch of a locomotive whistling when approaching or receding from a station. A marvel of the spectroscope is the separation of stars into a binary system when the most powerful telescope fails to see but one object, apparently the presence of only one star. The success that had been attained in the determination of radial velocities led the government to secure a telescope of a far greater light-gathering power and to mount it where the climatic conditions were more favorable than at Ottawa, and particularly where there was an assurance of more clear nights in the year than obtained at the federal capital. Hence was built the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory at Victoria, British Columbia, and the results already achieved there have fully justified the decision. The largest equatorials are invariably reflectors. The one at Mount Wilson, California, has a diameter of 100 inches, while ours, the second largest, has a diameter of 72 inches or 6 feet. Perhaps the most spectacular and beautiful telescopic object in the heavens is the great nebula in Orion. Then there is the great nebula in Andromeda, the brightest one in the sky. Next we see the ring or annular nebula in the constellation of Lyra, which may be seen with even a small telescope. Contemplating these nebulæ, many questions flood the mind to which but very few answers are as yet available. The spectroscope as usual forms our interlocutor and gives us knowledge from the bright lines in their spectrum that they are incandescent gases under low pressure. Thus by means of the spectroscope revelation after revelation is unfolded, and the fleet-footed messengers traveling at the rate of 186,000 miles a second come to us after their long, long journeys, some hundreds of years, many even thousands of years and bring the welcome news of their distant homes. Let me make a philosophical and perfectly logical statement based on what I have just said, and that is that no astronomer could give you absolute assurance that any stars that you may see to-night are really there, for the news from the nearest one takes over four years to reach us; that is, it would keep on shining for us four years after its extinction. Another wonder in the heavens is found in the dense globular clusters, and of these the most splendid in the northern sky is the great cluster in Hercules, also known as Messier 13, in which there are more than 50,000 stars. Mentioning this number may surprise some or most of you; when on a clear moonless winter night you look on the sky, you will be tempted to say. "What myriads of stars stud the celestial vault." That is poetic license. If you could count them, you would never get as many as 3,000, possibly 2,000 as seen by the naked eye, for there are not over 5,000 stars in the whole sky, northern and southern hemispheres, that can be seen with the unaided eye. When you board a ship in New York bound for some foreign port, you have the utmost confidence of reaching your destination, but I am sure it never occurs to you that the astronomer has anything to do with it. Yet it is his labors that supply the captain with the data, as found in a nautical almanac, to guide the ship over the watery waste. This astronomic work is undertaken by all national observatories, the determination of fundamental star places. We also engage in this work. The instrument used is called a meridian circle, so named because it is mounted in the meridian, to which its motion is confined. During my own time. the work of the astronomer has been greatly assisted by electrical devices. When I began observing-tell it not in Gath-half a century ago, we recorded by eye and ear; that is, with pencil in hand and listening to the beats of a chronometer or clock the transit of a star across the thread of a telescope was recorded. And what do we do to-day? The astronomer at the telescope turns a micrometer screw following the star, and in an adjoining room his observation is not only recorded but printed in hours, minutes and seconds and hundredths of a second on a continuous strip of paper, which can be copied at leisure the following morning. This certainly removes a lot of the drudgery of former days. The meridian circle is essentially the instrument that furnishes time; although our daily life is regulated by the sun, yet the accurate time is invariably obtained from the stars, which can be far more accurately observed than can such a boiling cauldron as the sun. Has it ever occurred to you that every time you pull out your watch and look at the time you are paying silent tribute to the astronomer? So does every factory whistle that summons to work and every church bell that summons to devotion. The time of all trains in the country is derived from some astronomer-the silent watcher of the skies. Although most investigational and research work is done. amongst the stars, yet the most important celestial body for us, outside of our own earth, is the sun. Every living thing on this earth, vegetable or animal, life in any form, is but converted solar energy, crystallized sunbeams. We are nothing but animated sunbeams, which is a very good reason for giving us sunny disposi tions. When we once know more about the behavior of the sun, how the firing is done and the stoking, what material is used for heating, and whether there is a rhythmic periodicity in the ac |