SIR ROBERT STAWELL BALL, who for more than a decade held a leading place in English reviews as a popular interpreter of the attractive mysteries of astronomy, was born in Dublin, July 1st, 1840. Graduating at Trinity College, Dublin, and devoting himself to astronomy, he became Royal Astronomer for Ireland in 1874, and in 1892 Lowndean Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge. Among his writings are “The Story of the Heavens,” “Starland,” etc., beside numerous valuable essays as yet uncollected. He was knighted in 1886.