This brief sketch of the work of the observatory naturally leads to the question frequently asked of astronomers:--What use is the work done at observatories and what practical value can a knowledge of the stars have in everyday life? While astronomy has obvious practical applications to navigation and surveying yet nine-tenths of modern astronomical research is devoted to the more or less abstract question of the constitution and motion of the stars and the structure of the universe. Indeed most physical and chemical as well as astronomical research is undertaken for the purpose of increasing our knowledge and of investigating the secrets and laws of nature and has generally no direct practical economic application. But it is now generally recognized by the layman as well as the scientist that without abstract there can be no applied science and that all the great economic and industrial applications of science have had to be preceded by the abstract and apparently non-practical investigations of pure science. The Great War perhaps made more evident than ever before the absolute dependence of applied science upon the unselfish and abstract work of pure science. Economic Value In view of past experience in science it would hence be a rash prediction to assert that the investigation of the conditions in distant stars can have no practical application upon earth. It may be of interest to point out one possible application of astrophysical research. It is generally agreed that one of the most important economic problems of the not far distant future will be the provision of sources of energy to replace our rapidly depleting supplies of coal and oil. It appears now that the most probable solution of this problem will consist in the development of some method for utilizing the inexhaustible stores of energy contained in the atoms of matter. Modern research on conditions in the stars has made it practically certain that the enormous supply of energy, which has been radiated into space for aeons of time from these bodies, can only be maintained undiminished by the energy released by the transformation of atoms in the interior of the stars, where conditions of temperature and pressure prevail at present unattainable in terrestrial laboratories. The most hopeful line of attack upon this tremendously important economic problem hence seems to lie in the systematic astrophysical investigation of conditions in the stars supplemented by physical and chemical researches on the structure of the atom. Ethical Value