One deplorable result of the Civil War was that Gould's
Astronomical Journal had to be suspended. Shortly after the
restoration of peace, instead of re-establishing the journal, its
founder conceived the project of exploring the southern heavens.
The northern hemisphere being the seat of civilization, that
portion of the sky which could not be seen from our latitudes was
comparatively neglected. What had been done in the southern
hemisphere was mostly the occasional work of individuals and of
one or two permanent observatories. The latter were so few in
number and so meagre in their outfit that a splendid field was
open to the inquirer. Gould found the patron which he desired in
the government of the Argentine Republic, on whose territory he
erected what must rank in the future as one of the memorable
astronomical establishments of the world. His work affords a most
striking example of the principle that the astronomer is more
important than his instruments. Not only were the means at the
command of the Argentine Observatory slender in the extreme when
compared with those of the favored institutions of the North, but,
from the very nature of the case, the Argentine Republic could not
supply trained astronomers.
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