Broca's Brain - Carl Sagan [139]
There is never much sign in these journals of the intrusion of external (as opposed to academic) politics, except for an occasional notice such as the appointment by President McKinley of T. J. J. See as professor of mathematics to the U.S. Navy, and a certain continuing chilliness in scientific debates between the personnel of the Lick and Potsdam (Germany) Observatories.
Some signs of the prevailing attitudes of the 1890s occasionally trickle through. For example, in a description of an eclipse expedition to Siloam, Georgia, on May 28, 1900: “Even some of the whites were lacking in a very deep knowledge of things ‘eclipse-wise.’ Many thought it was a money-making scheme and what I intended to charge for admission was a very important question, frequently asked. Another idea was that the eclipse could be seen only from the inside of my observatory … Just here I wish to express my appreciation of the high moral tone of the community, for, with a population of only 100, including the immediate neighborhood, it sustains 2 white and 2 colored churches and during my stay I did not hear a single profane word … As an unsophisticated Yankee in the Southland, unused to Southern ways, I naturally made many little slips that were not considered ‘just the thing.’ The smiles at my prefixing ‘Mr.’ to the name of my colored helper caused me to change it to ‘Colonel,’ which was entirely satisfactory to everybody.”
A board of visitors was appointed to resolve some (never publicly specified) problems at the U.S. Naval Observatory. A report of this group—which consisted of two obscure senators and Professors Edward C. Pickering, George C. Comstock and Hale—is illuminating because it mentions dollar amounts. We find that the annual running costs of the major observatories in the world were: Naval Observatory, $85,000; Paris Observatory, $53,000; Greenwich Observatory (England), $49,000; Harvard Observatory, $46,000; and Pulkowa Observatory (Russia), $36,000. The salaries of the two directors of the U.S. Naval Observatory were $4,000 each, and at the Harvard Observatory, $5,000. The distinguished board of visitors recommended that in a “schedule of salaries which could be expected to attract astronomers of the class desired,” the salary of directors of observatories should be $6,000. At the Naval Observatory, computers (exclusively human at the time) were paid $1,200 per annum, but at the Harvard Observatory only $500 per annum, and were almost exclusively women. In fact, all salaries at Harvard, except for the director’s, were significantly lower than at the Naval Observatory. The committee stated: “The great difference in salaries at Washington and Cambridge, especially for the officers of lower grade, is probably unavoidable. This is partly due to Civil Service Rules.” An additional sign of astronomical impecuniosity is the announcement of the post of “volunteer research assistant” at Yerkes, which had no associated pay but which was said to provide good experience for students with higher degrees.
Then, as now, astronomy was besieged by “paradoxers,” proponents of fringe or crackpot ideas. One proposed a telescope with ninety-one lenses in series as an alternative to a telescope with a smaller number of lenses of larger aperture. The British in this period were similarly plagued but in perhaps a gentler way. For example, an obituary in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (59:226) of Henry Perigal informs us that the deceased had celebrated his ninety-fourth birthday by becoming a member of the Royal Institution, but was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1850. However, “our publications contain nothing from his pen.” The obituary describes “the remarkable way in which the charm of Mr. Perigal’s personality won him a place which might have seemed impossible of attainment for a man of his views; for there is no masking the fact that he was a paradoxer pure and simple, his main conviction being that the Moon did not rotate,