energetic impulsion of M. Flammarion. Its aim is "to bring together persons who are practically or theoretically occupied with astronomy, or who are interested in the development of that science, and the extension of its influence for the enlightenment of minds." It has now about three hundred members. The Urania Society, recently formed in Berlin, has been able by the generosity of its founders to erect a building to the purposes of Astronomy, and furnish it with the most perfect instruments. Societies of amateurs for the popularization of physical and astronomical science have been founded in Spain and Colombia, and at Nijni-Novgorod in Russia. Astronomy is no longer, in our time, the property of a few privileged persons. The public, in the whole world, has been set in the current with the facts of science by the diffusion of books written by such able popularizers as Flammarion, Guillemin, Vinot, Figuier, De Parville, and others, in France; Proctor, Ledger, and Miss Clarke, in England; and Meyer, Klein, and Wolf, in Germany; and by the announcement and familiar explanation of phenomena. At this moment, without taking account of popular scientific journals and English and American magazines, that make known the principal astronomical facts, there are twenty-nine special reviews and journals teaching astronomy to the public. There are five in Germany; six in the United States and England; four in France; and others in Belgium, Russia, Switzerland, Portugal, and Brazil.
The number of amateur astronomers is considerable, and it is safe to say that of all the sciences this is the one that can boast the most adepts among private persons. Among 1,160 astronomers now living, whose works have gained a footing in science, about half are amateurs with private observatories. In England, including official establishments and those attached to the universities, there are 34 observatories; in America, more than 80; in France, 17; in Austria, 24; in Italy, 21; in Russia, 15; and in Belgium, 5. We may say that an amateur, armed with a telescope, is to be found at every point on our planet, ready to observe a celestial phenomenon. In Chili, Honduras, Peru, New Zealand, Tunisia, and Tasmania we can meet astronomical amateurs provided with instruments, who devote their night hours to contemplating the beauties of the starry vault and to collecting observations which shall be useful for the advancement of science.
Most of the discoveries of comets, small planets, variable stars, and star-clusters are the fruit of individual researches. Were not all those amateur astronomers who, in the first ages of history, in Chaldea and Egypt, China and Mexico, drew from Nature the first explanations of celestial phenomena? From the beginning of historic time down to near our period, astronomical sci-
