170 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
ing this newly-found body excited much discussion among 
astronomers. 
In 1852, Professor Bache, then Superintendent of the United 
States Coast Survey, obtained the help of Professor Peirce in 
preparing the longitude determinations in the Survey, and from 
the work he then did appears to have originated his article in 
Gould’s Astronomical Journal, entitled “ Criterion for the Rejec- 
tion of Doubtful Observations.” “ It would seem almost certain 
that ‘ Peirce’s Criterion,’ or possibly some modified form of it, 
will in time secure general acceptance. In any case, it will ever 
stand as the first, and as a satisfactory solution of this delicate 
and practically important problem of probability.” 
For seven years Professor Peirce was Superintendent of the 
United States Coast Survey, having been appointed in 1867 after 
the death of Professor Bache. While in this position, he made 
several tours of inspection, and raised the standard of the ser- 
vice by giving greater freedom to the officers of the corps, plac- 
ing responsibility on each person engaged in the work, and 
giving aid to all scientific work connected with the Survey. As 
Superintendent he took personal charge of the expedition to 
Sicily in 1870, to observe the eclipse of the sun which occurred 
in December of that year. By his efforts as a member of the 
Transit of Venus Commission, a party from the Coast Survey 
was sent to Nagasaki, and another to Chatham Island, to take 
part in the observations on the occasion of this important astro- 
nomical event. 
In 1864, Professor Peirce read his first paper before the 
National Academy of Sciences, and from 1866 to 1870 a series 
of papers that were published later in his ‘‘ Linear Associative 
Algebra.” This work he pronounced “ the pleasantest mathe- 
matical effort of my life,” and a writer has said of it that it 
‘““must ever remain a monument to the comprehensive grasp of 
thought and analytical genius of its author.” 
Interested in all astronomical questions, and especially those 
concerning the solar system, Professor Peirce studied the nebular 
hypothesis, the rings of Saturn, the phenomena of comets and 
