| Summary: | First Paragraph: | If there is anything in the realm of the wonderful science of astronomy that commands the admiration of the world, learned as well as unlearned, it is the accuracy with which eclipses are predicted, and the precision with which the time and the track of a total eclipse of the sun are laid down upon the surface of the earth decades of years, I might probably say centuries, in advance. People wonder how it is possible that an astronomer may travel thousands of miles, carrying with him all kinds of instruments, may spend weeks in their erection and adjustment, and when the predicted moment has come, may secure such valuable and accurate results as if he had been at home in his own observatory, had used his own familiar and permanently mounted equipment, and had arranged the time of totality to suit his own convenience. Truly, there is reason to marvel at this great God-given intelligence. But, humanly speaking, astronomers have deserved it, they have paid for it by their centuries and even milleniums of patient observations, analyses and computations. And there is no doubt that other sciences will attain similar results when they shall have been studied with similar assiduity, and we feel assured that with our modern facilities of research and communication the time and labor will be much reduced. IX 101-109 2
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