MR R. A. PROCTOR, THE ASTRONOMER.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2080, 23 October 1880, Page 3

MR R. A. PROCTOR, THE ASTRONOMER.

There are very few people in New Zealand, particularly among those who have been in the habit of perusing the principal British reviews and magazines, who are not familiar with tbe name of Mr Richard Anthony Proctor, the most popular astronomer of the present day. To a very large proportion of the general public in Great Britain, America, and tbe colonies Mr Prootor is well known for, the able manner in which he conveys knowledge on the most intricate astronomical subjects in the most familiar language, tbe result being that his name has become a household word, his writings having penetrated into communities and families where the works of his great predeceseors were only imperfectly known. The “ Westminster Review,” in speaking of his abilities as a writer and a lecturer, says : “Mr Proctor, of all writers of our time, beet conforms to Matthew Arnold’s conception of a man of culture, in that be strives to humanise knowledge, and divest it of whatever is harsh, crude, and technical, and so to make it a source of happiness and brightness to all.” Here we have, coupled with Mr Proctor’s undoubted abilities as a scientific man, the secret of his popularity and success. In England he has a great reputation, and the success of his three lecturing tours in America prove the high estimation in which ho is held in that country. Daring bis last tour in the States, he delivered 136 lectures, which yielded a clear profit of £15,000. During that tour he frequently lectured at the State Colleges and other collegiate institutions, and an instance is related of a teacher having brought bis scholars a distance of forty miles to Bloomington when Mr Proctor was lecturing there, boarding them them for a week, in order that they might hear the entire course*

Mr Proctor, who has a family of six children, is a widower, having lost his wife in 1879. It was in consequence of that bereavement that he started on the present tour, going from San Francisco to Sydney, via Auckland. When he reached Sydney his intentions in reference to lecturing were not of a very decided character ; but having met Mr B. 8. Smythe, the well-known manager, at Melbourne, arrangements were immediately made for his appearance in that city. His success in Melbourne and Adelaide, which were the next places he visited, and subsequently in Sydney, is almost unprecedented in Australia. On his way to New Zealand he gave three lectures in Hobart Town, the House of Assembly adjourning that they might have the pleasure of hearing him. But nowhere was he more enthusiastically received than in Dunedin. Five hundred first class, and more than two hundred second-class course tickets were taken for his lectures. That his audiences included both Bishops and Ministers of all denominations is a sufficient reply to the charge so unfairly made against him by some narrow-minded newspaper correspondents in Adelaide that his lectures had an irreligious tendency. So far from this being the case, an effort was made by the Boman Catholic clergy to induce him to give a lecture in the convent school at Dunedin, the sisters of the order being unable to attend any public entertainment; and at the juvenile lecture,which he consented to givein the Garrison Hall on Thursday evening, the principals of the high schools and the other public schools did their utmost to induce their scholars to attend, and although there was a general charge of a shilling all over the hall, the official return shows that no fewer than 2600 children with their parents were present on the occasion, certainly the largest gathering of children that has ever been seen in any building in New Zealand. The .reception awaiting the distinguished astronomer in Christchurch is likely to be quite as cordial as that given him in Dunedin, for a large number of tickets have already been taken for the course of lectures which he is to give in the Oddfellows’ Hall next week. His stay in this city cannot be extended, as ho is announced to open on Monday week in Wellington. Mr Proctor is said to be enjoying his antipodean tour immensely, as may be imagined from the following sketch of him by a genial Victorian journalist:—“ Saturday last I had a pleasant chat with our latest cometary savant, E. A. Proctor. To my surprise and delight I found him to be of the most jolly, cheery, straightforward, honest-minded style of Englishman, vivacious and full of animal spirits, replete with humonr, an admirable reoonteur, quick at repartee, and filled mainly with two desires—the one to pull a strokooar, or at the worst one on the stroke side of one of our racing crews (for old Cambridge experience has made him most effective when pulling among the evens), and the second to have a real good game of chess.” But although Mr Proctor thoroughly enjoys life, he is a great worker. As lor his

mental capital, apart from the hardest sort of study, he has been an omnivorous reader. For three years after he left the University his studies were almost wholly historical and literary, and an article on “ Double Stars,” in the “ Oornhill Magazine ” in 1863, first introduced him to the public as an astronomer. His varied and extensive and exact informa* tion, and the facility with which he uses the pen are matters of marvel. The climate of Hew Zealand he finds specially favorable for literary work. Between his arrival in Dunedin on a Friday evening and his first lecture on the following Tuesday, ho wrote for the “ Victorian Review” an article on “ The Connection between Astronomy and the Jewish Sacrifices,” and for the “ Gentleman’s Magazine, ” “ A Popular Discussion of the Fifteenth Puzzle,” showing how every possible combination may be treated.

Amongst the standard works on astronomy which Mr Proctor has written are “ Saturn' and his System,” “Other Worlds than Ours,” " Orbs Around Us,” “ Expanse of Heaven and more recently he has published “ Pleasant Ways in Science,” “Flowers of the Sky,” “ Bough Ways made Smooth,” and “ Tho Poetry of Astronomy,” which has recently been announced as nearly ready. A proof of the reputation he enjoys in England is shown in the fact that he was selected to write the section on astronomy in the latest edition of the “ Encyclopedia Brittanioa.”