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so damaged as to prevent healthy, consistent, uniform brain-action. A certain range of thought and action may seem sane, but an ever-increasing undercurrent of disease carries them further from normal brain-health. These cases excite the wonderment of the hour, and to moralists are phases of human depravity; but to the psychologist are explosions of masked diseases almost unknown and undiscovered.

It will be apparent to all that the most unfortunate treatment with miscarriage of justice is meted out to these cases. Thus, the inebriate maniac in delirium who commits murder and assault is not a criminal to be cured by punishment. His brain has broken down and needs the most careful restorative treatment. He is physically sick, and can never recover except by the use of well-directed remedies and along the line of exact laws and forces.

In the second class, the profound failure of the present methods of management should direct attention to the real means of cure. Science shows, beyond all doubt, that a system of work-house hospitals, where all these cases can come under exact physical care and restraint, and be organized into self-supporting quarantine stations, will not only protect the community and tax-payer, but put the victim in the best condition for permanent recovery. Here he can be made a producer, and taken from the ranks of consumers and parasites of society. If he is an incurable, he can be made selfsupporting, and society and the world can be protected from his influence.

In the third class, when public opinion recognizes that the occasional or continuous use of alcohol or other narcotics is dangerous and likely to produce grave mental disturbance, these alterations of character and conduct will be no mystery. Such men will be recognized as diseased, and come under medical care and recover. Medical and scientific men must teach the world the nature and character of alcohol, and the diseases which are likely to come from its use. This moralists, clergymen, and reformed inebriates, can never do. Today these inebriate maniacs appeal for recognition and sympathy from many homes and firesides. They call for help. They ask for bread. We are deaf to their entreaties-we give them stones. In language that can not be mistaken, they tell us of unstable brain-force, of tottering reason, of marked, insidious disease. We call it vice, and treat them as of sound mind and body. They ask for help for the brain, starved, disorganized, and growing feebler. We give them the pledge and prayer, and taunt them as vile, and willful, and wretched sinners. What wonder that the glimmerings of reason and the lights of a higher manhood should disappear in the darkness of total insanity under such treatment? In the delirium of criminal assault, or the imbecilities of the low drunkard, or the strange acts and changes of

VOL. XXX.-8

character in the so-called moderate drinker, they mutely appeal for aid, and we brutally fine, imprison, and persecute them. These are the spirit and theory which seek support through temperance efforts, through the church, and political parties, to remove an evil of which they have no comprehension. When all this thunder and roar of temperance reformation shall pass away, the still small voice of Science will be heard, and the true condition of the inebriate and the nature of his malady will be recognized.

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR EDWARD S. HOLDEN.

BY WILLIAM C. WINLOCK.

PROFESSOR EDWARD SINGLETON HOLDEN, the Presi

dent of the University of California, and Director of the Lick Observatory, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on the 5th of November, 1846. He is a direct descendant of Justinian Holden, who came to this country from Kent, England, in 1636, and settled in Massachusetts on a tract of land which now forms a part of the city of Cambridge, but was then called, I believe, Watertown. Dr. William Holden, grandson of Justinian Holden, and Professor Holden's greatgrandfather, afterward moved from Cambridge to Dorchester, Massachusetts, where the family resided till about 1830. The first eight years of Professor Holden's life were spent in St Louis, but about 1854 he was taken to Cambridge and placed at the private schools taught by Miss Ware and Miss Harris. It was during the six years spent here that he received his first idea of astronomy-from his cousin, Professor George P. Bond, then Director of Harvard College Observatory-and a certain occasion upon which he first saw the bright star a Lyra through the fifteen-inch telescope made a lasting impression upon his mind.

In 1860 Holden returned to St. Louis and entered the preparatory academy of Washington University, from which, after two years' study, he passed into the Scientific School of the university. The young student soon attracted the attention of Professor Chauvenet, the accomplished mathematician and astronomer, then Chancellor of the University. Professor Chauvenet spent the winter of 1864-'65 in Minnesota for the benefit of his health, and during this time Mr. Holden formed a part of his household, and prosecuted his studies directly under Professor Chauvenet's eye.

In 1866 we find him assisting Dr. Gould in collecting the statistics of the United States volunteer soldiers from the State of Missouri, for the "Investigations in the Military and Anthropological

Statistics of American Soldiers," published by the United States Sanitary Commission, and in the same year he graduated with distinction from the Scientific School, receiving the degree of B. S. While at the university he also went over an important part of the classical

course.

With a view of continuing his mathematical studies, he secured an appointment to the Military Academy at West Point through the Hon. J. W. McClurg, Representative of the Fifth Missouri District in Congress, and was admitted as a cadet to the Academy on the 1st of September, 1866. On the 15th of June, 1870, he was graduated, third in a class of fifty-nine members, and was appointed Second-Lieutenant of the Fourth United States Artillery. He was assigned to Company G of that regiment, and served with his command at Fort Johnston, North Carolina, until August, 1871, when he was ordered to duty at the Military Academy, West Point, as Assistant Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. June 10, 1872, he was transferred to the Engineer Corps of the army, remaining at West Point, however, as instructor in practical military engineering.

During these few years at the Military Academy he published, in the "American Journal of Science," his first astronomical work—a short paper on the "Spectrum of the Aurora" and another on the "Spectrum of Lightning."

In March, 1873, Lieutenant Holden resigned his commission in the army, and was appointed Professor of Mathematics in the United States Navy, a position which his teacher Chauvenet had held before him. He was ordered to the Washington Naval Observatory, then under the direction of Rear-Admiral B. F. Sands, and his first duties. in his new profession were as assistant to Professor Harkness in the work of the transit circle. Immediately, however, upon the completion and mounting of the twenty-six-inch equatorial-at that time the largest refractor in the world-he was transferred, November 15, 1873, to duty as assistant to Professor Newcomb, who had been placed in charge of that instrument.

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The results of Professor Holden's work during six years of observation with this instrument, first as assistant to Professor Newcomb, and afterward as assistant to Professor Hall, have been printed in the volumes of the Observatory publications and in various astronomical journals. Turning over the files of the "Astronomische Nachrichten for these years, we find numerous observations of comets and of double stars, of the satellites of Uranus and Neptune, and of the companion of Sirius; but, besides all this rather prosaic routine work, Professor Holden devoted himself zealously to the more fascinating study of the physical features of the planets and nebulæ.

His most elaborate investigation in this field is given in the

"Monograph of the Central Parts of the Nebula of Orion," an exhaustive résumé and discussion of all the observations hitherto made on the central parts of this interesting nebula. Professor Holden's own observations were made with the twenty-six-inch equatorial from 1874 to 1880, their main object being to provide sufficient data to determine with certainty in the future whether or not changes have occurred in the nebula. His conclusion, from a thorough discussion of the large mass of material already available in the observations of two hundred and twenty-four years, is briefly, that "the figure of the nebula of Orion has remained the same from 1758 to now (if we except a change in the shape of its apex (E) about 1770, which appears quite possible); but that in the brightness of its parts undoubted variations have taken place, and that such changes are even now going on."

In June, 1876, Professor Holden went to London, under instructions from the Secretary of the Navy, to examine and report on the South Kensington Loan Collection of Scientific Instruments, giving especial attention to improvements in astronomical and geodetic instruments. An interesting portion of the report (which may be found in full in the report of the Secretary of the Navy for 1876) is that relating to the system of time-signals, etc., in use in foreign countries. Considerable attention was also given to methods of testing chronometers. The time-ball on the Western Union Telegraph Building in New York was erected according to his plans in 1879.

Professor Holden observed the transit of Mercury of May 6, 1878, in co-operation with his friend Dr. Henry Draper, at the latter's private observatory at Hastings; and later in the same year he was put in charge of a party to observe the total solar eclipse of July 29th. The station selected was Central City, Colorado, an altitude of some 8,400 feet above sea-level. Professor Holden's special work was the examination of the sky about the sun for the detection of the hypothetical planet Vulcan-a search which, as we know, was fruitless. In 1879 he took charge of the library of the Naval Observatory, and in 1880 he was transferred from duty with Professor Hall to duty on the transit circle with Professor Eastman, taking part in the observations with this instrument in addition to his work as librarian. His connection with the library is marked by several valuable contributions to astronomical bibliography, notably "A Subject-Index to the Publications of the United States Naval Observatory, 1845-1875," an "Index Catalogue of Books and Memoirs relating to Nebula and Clusters," and a work undertaken in connection with Dr. Hastings, "A Synopsis of the Scientific Writings of Sir William Herschel."

Upon the death of the distinguished astronomer, Professor James C. Watson, Professor Holden accepted the position thus made vacant, of Professor of Astronomy in the University of Wisconsin and Direct

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or of the Washburn Observatory; and obtaining, at the request of Governor Washburn, a leave of absence from the Naval Observatory, February 2, 1881, he immediately proceeded to Madison to take charge of the observatory, which was then in an entirely unfinished state his official connection with the navy was not severed till June 1, 1882. Professor Holden's five years of administration of the Washburn Observatory have established it in the foremost rank of American observatories. Four volumes of publications have been issued, the last one containing the most important piece of work of the Repsold meridian circle, the determination of the positions of the 303 fundamental stars for the southern zones of the "Astronomische Gesellschaft "; to form, however, an adequate idea of the varied labors of the director and his assistants, reference must be made to the volumes themselves. In 1883 Professor Holden's work at Madison was interrupted for several months, to conduct the Government expedition to Caroline Island in the South Pacific mid-ocean, for the purpose of observing the total eclipse of the sun on May 6th. Professor Holden's chosen task was again, as in 1878, the search for intra-Mercurial planets, and with the exceptionally long duration of totality-nearly six minutes-this search was made under most favorable circumstances, and again resulted negatively. The account of this expedition, contained in an interesting memoir of the National Academy of Sciences, will be found to be "much more than a technical report on the dry scientific details of the work of eclipseobservers" it includes an entertaining narrative of the ocean-voyage of twenty-nine days from Callao, and a complete history and description of the lonely little island, with photographic views of the characteristic vegetation and reef-beeches.

Professor Holden's resignation of the chair of Astronomy at Madison took effect on the 1st of January, 1886, upon his acceptance of his present position, the presidency of the University of California, and directorship of the Lick Observatory. Since 1874 he has been one of the chief consulting astronomers to the Lick trustees, who, under the provisions of the will, have charge of building and equipping the observatory. In 1881 he visited Mount Hamilton and successfully observed the transit of Mercury; in 1883 he visited it again, and in 1884 he went out again to superintend the erection of the fine Repsold meridian circle. The Lick Observatory, as it approaches completion, has received so much attention in scientific and popular journals, that a description of it seems hardly necessary here. The giant thirty-six-inch objectivethrough which "the observer might expect to see the moon much the same as he would without the telescope if it were only a hundred miles away," and might make out objects on the moon's surface "although they were no larger than some of the larger edifices on the earth "is now in a fair way to be finished by the Clarks during the autumn of the present year; the steel dome will probably be finished about the

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