encing at
eight o'clock. They are recorded at the other end of the line
without further trouble."

"But have you never met with a failure to understand the
instructions?"

"No; they are too simple to be mistaken, once it is understood that
no one has anything to do but make his connections at the designated
moment, without asking whether any one else is ready."

Airy was noted not less for his ability as an organizer than for his
methodical habits. The care with which he preserved every record led
Sir William Rowan Hamilton to say that when Airy wiped his pen on a
blotter, he fancied him as always taking a press copy of the mark.
His machinery seemed to work perfectly, whether it was constructed
of flesh or of brass. He could prepare instructions for the most
complicated piece of work with such effective provision against
every accident and such completeness in every detail that the work
would go on for years without further serious attention from him.
The instruments which he designed half a century ago are mostly in
use to this day, with scarcely an alteration.

Yet there is some reason to fear that Airy carried method a little
too far to get the best results. Of late years his system has been
greatly changed, even at Greenwich. It was always questionable
whether so rigid a military routine could accomplish the best that
was possible in astronomy; and Airy himself, during his later years,
modified his plan by trying to secure trained scientific men as his
assistants, giving them liberty to combine independent research, on
their own account, with the work of the establishment. His successor
has gone farther in the same direction, and is now gathering around
him a corps of young university men, from whose ability much may
be expected. Observations with the spectroscope have been pursued,
and the observatory has taken a prominent part in the international
work of making a photographic map of the heavens. Of special
importance are the regular discussions of photographs of the sun,
taken in order to determine the law of the variation of the spots.
The advantage of the regular system which has been followed for
more than fifty years is seen in the meteorological observations;
these disprove some theories of the relation between the sun and
the weather, in a way that no other set of meteorological records
has done. While delicate determinations of the highest precision,
such as those made at Pulkova, are not y