THE INDUSTRY OF ALL NATIONS.
position of this vast continent of North America, in respect to the other greatdivisions of the globe, the enterprising character of the people, and the wide ex-tent of territory that still remains to he explored, surveyed, and settled.
This consideration makes it apparent, that neither the authorities nor stand-ards of Europe can satisfy our demands.
In the useful arts of life, the United States have no superior, and but onerival; in the successful application of the sciences to the useful arts, the nationhas already accomplished signal performances; and in the present case of aNautical Almanac, which has been regarded as a beneficial example of suchapplication by every nation undertaking it, the very work which consults thepractical wants of the community has proved in a high degree subservient tothe advancement of science and the diffusion of sound knowledge.
We learn from this same report that the American Nautical Almanac hasmade improvements upon the English in the ephemeris of the moon, and that ofmost of the planets. To explain the nature of these improvements would lead usinto scientific details unintelligible to the general reader. It is sufficient to say,that they have been submitted to the leading astronomers of the world, and havereceived their entire approval. Indeed, as we learn from the preface and otherparts of the work, Oapt. Davis, the Superintendent, has associated with himseveral of the most eminent mathematicians and astronomers of the country.At the head of these is our illustrious physicist, Professor Benjamin Peirce, ofHarvard University, the value of whose labors has recently been acknowledgedby his election to the honorary fellowship of the Boyal Society of London. The“ Tables of the Moon,” prepared in the office of the Nautical Almanac, a copy ofwhich is on exhibition, reduce the average errors in the moon’s place, as derivedfrom the old tables, to one-third of their amount, and a distinguished gentlemanof Philadelphia, Mr. Miers Fisher Longstreth, has published an improvement ofthe lunar formula, which has probably reduced this remaining error by two-thirds. Mr. Longstreth’s corrections have been embodied in the new tables ofthe Almanac, and thus, owing to the genius and labors of Peirce, Longstreth, andother distinguished astronomers, the Almanac has it now in its power to predictthe moon’s place in the heavens with a degree of precision, far surpassing anything heretofore attained.
It may be mentioned among the benefits conferred by these lunar tables, thatthey bring into practical availability a large number of “ moon culminations,”as they are technically called, observed by the astronomers of the Coast Surveyon the western coast of the United States, which have been hitherto lost. Theseobservations are made on the land for the nice and accurate determination ofgeographical longitudes, and in that now difficult and extensive field of labor areof the highest importance; owing, however, to the imperfections in the tablesby means of which the place of the moon in her orbit is computed, no otherobserved “ moon culminations ” can be usefully applied than those which havebeen correspondingly observed elsewhere. That is, these “ moon culminations,”to be available, must be observed at the same date at two different places. Inconsequence of this necessity, some six hundred or more of the observationsmade in California and Oregon, to be found in the books of the Coast Survey,have been laid aside “ for want of moon’s places more reliable than the BritishNautical Almanac can give ns.” (Letter of A. D. Bache, Superintendent UnitedStates Coast Survey, to the Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac, November20 , 1851 .)
These more reliable moon’s places, such as are sufficiently accurate for imme-diate comparison with observation, being given by the new tables of the NauticalAlmanac, the heretofore unavailable “ moon culminations ” are made at once toserve their original purpose, and the determination of numerous geographicalpositions in our recently acquired territory on the Pacific is rendered moreexpeditious and more complete.
We began this compendious notice of the Nautical Almanac by saying that noscience had been so engrafted upon the thoughts and pursuits of men, as that ofastronomy. And this is a reflection which naturally arises upon the mention ofan astronomical ephemeris, for the business of this ephemeris is prediction , andastronomical prediction, has throughout all periods of the world’s history exer-cised a controlling influence upon the destinies of mankind, though in waysentirely dissimilar, and by the use of means altogether opposite and inharmonious.
It has been the misfortune, and perhaps the reproach, of astronomy that theknowledge of its most elementary facts, such as lead to astronomical prediction,has through long and obscure periods of time, been perverted to the worst pur-poses of superstition and tyranny.
The recent researches of French and German aroheeologists have shown, thatthe mysteries on which the religious ceremonies of the ancient Egyptians werefounded, were in a great degree astronomical, or rather to use the correct word,astrological in their character. It is not difficult to conceive that this should bemade the ground of an undisputed title to supreme authority.
When we remember that in this city, where education, both religious andgeneral, is almost universally diffused, impudent pretensions advanced hyoffensively vulgar people, and even by some of high official and social rank,
to a communication with the world of spirits, are listened to with cre-
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dulity, we may dispense with any labored effort to explain the power to bederived from that knowledge which could predict the recurring phenomena olthe heavens, extending apparently to an intercourse with the gods themselves.The effect upon the ignorant of the display of this knowledge would be height-ened by the operation of that deeply rooted sentiment of our nature, which leadsus to look upwards in religion, to see the Deity himself in the visible works ofhis creation which contain the most marvellous manifestations of his wisdom andpower, to claim a mysterious kindred with the skies, and to endeavor to read inthem the fate of men and empires. It appears that among the Egyptians, thereligion of the people, the ceremonies, customs, and political institutions, andeven the phases of their individual life, were connected, through a long series ofages, with celestial phenomena, in such a way that the character of the nationreceived its general impress from this source.
The Egyptian monuments and temples were covered with symbols and em-blems of a mixed astronomical and religious signification, as for example, tberoyal tomb, found by Ohampollion the younger, in the valley of Riban-el-Moluck,and the well-known temple of Denderah. On these, the disposition of the pic-tures and of the religious emblems accompanying them, appear to unite an ex-press reference to the functions of the gods to which they were consecrated, withthe solar epochs they were designed to commemorate. Those hieroglyphic sym-bols, by which the days, the hours, the months, and years were denoted, arefound on the papyrus, or on the fragments of the papyrus, containing thesacerdotal writings. Thus it seems that astronomical prediction, under the formof astrology, played a principal part in the worship of the Egyptians, and lay atthe foundation of the sacred mysteries and consequently of the institutions of itspriesthood.
The same mixture of religious rites with astronomical prediction existed amongthe other nations of the East. That it was so in Ohaldea and Babylonia we learnfrom Scripture. And we know that it is so in China at the present day, wherethe hierarchy of the political system is by established usage assimilated to theorder of the celestial phenomena.
The wonderful achievements of Layard at Nineveh have unveiled anotherinstance of a religious establishment which recognizes the heavenly bodies astypes of a supreme power, and ascribes to them supernatural influences. Thephysical character of the Assyrian plains, the climate, the pursuits and habits ofthe people, were all favorable in an eminent degree to the observation of thestars. An imperfect knowledge of planetary and .stellar, real and apparentmotion, easily acquired under such circumstances, was applied, here as elsewhere,to astrological prediction, and originated claims to supernatural agencies andperceptions.
In all that concerns this blending together the periods and symbols of astro-nomical knowledge with the rites, institutions and obligations of religion, woperceive the basis of learning and craft on the one side, and of ignorance andsuperstition on the other, upon which the supreme ecclesiastical polity of theancients was founded.
It is unnecessary to say any thing of what history teaches ns, or of whatphilosophy would teach us if history were mute, concerning the character of sucha hierarchy, or the condition of the people over which it exercised a despotic sway.
But having exhibited astronomical prediction in the degraded state of a con-federate and servant in the cause of ignorance, superstition, and tyranny, let usturn for a moment to contemplate it in its modern and better phase.
And here we behold it the handmaid and helpmate of that commerce whichhas made known to us the most remote parts of the earth, which has establishedintercommunication between distant nations, which has fostered and strength-ened the ties of kindred and created anew the obligations of friendship amongmany people, which has brought into activity the democratic element of society,sustaining it till it acquired the mature and sedate form and constitution ofmanhood, which has successfully labored to plant that tree of state, the roots ofwhich are nourished in the plenteous soil of civil liberty, and the branches ofwhich drink the refreshing dews of Protestant Christianity.
Astrology,
- “the gloomy form
Of superstition dressed in wisdom’s garb”—
recoiled with terror from the discoveries of the seventeenth century, which laidthe foundations of the modern science of nautical astronomy, the indispensablemeans and safeguard of our modern commercial intercourse, which in itself is thevery creator of these, our modern Olympic games, the Exhibitions of the Indus-try of all Nations.
When we revert to those periods of the world’s history in which the laws ofastronomical prediction were but little understood, and even perverted in thatlittle so as to prevent the acquisition of further knowledge, and consider ourpresent state of refinement and superiority in this respect, we will not deny thatin the modern and actual state of astronomical science, as represented in the“ American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac,” we recognize one of the symbols,durable and promising, of that intellectual dayspring which hath visited us fromon high.