While astronomers and scientific men generally fully realize the value of the practical applications of science, their main purpose is the search for truth and the extension of our knowledge of nature. While it is possible that investigation of the stars may have immense economic value, it is certain that it has tremendous ethical value giving us a clearer knowledge of the laws of nature and of our relations to the wonders of creation. Astronomy is the oldest and in many respects the most important of the sciences and its study, through the ages has been one of the most elevating influences on human character. Poincaré has well said that if the earth had been so continuously covered with clouds that the heavenly bodies could not be seen, mankind would still be in a primitive state and under the domain of superstition. The main superiority of modern over ancient civilization does not consist in the greater abundance of the necessities and luxuries of life, although this is undoubtedly due primarily to scientific research, but to the elevating influences of the truer conceptions of nature made possible by the abstract study of astronomy and other sciences. It has been truly said that the degree of civilization of a country may be judged by the support it gives to the study of astronomy. By the establishment and maintenance of the Dominion Observatory at Ottawa and of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory at Victoria with the second largest telescope in the world, Canada has a just claim on this criterion to the favourable estimation of the scientific world. VICTORIA, B.C., May, 1923. TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, by John Stanley Plaskett