5+6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and, lantern in hand, mount to the roof. On the evening of Octo- 

 ber 1, 1847, there was a party of invited guests at the Mitchell 

 home. As usual, Maria slipped out, ran up to the telescope, and 

 soon returned and told her father that she thought she saw a 

 comet. Mr. Mitchell hurried upstairs, stationed himself at the 

 telescope, and, as soon as he looked at the object pointed out by 

 his daughter, declared it to be a comet. Miss Mitchell, with her 

 usual caution, advised him to say nothing about it until they had 

 observed it long enough to be tolerably sure. But Mr. Mitchell 

 immediately wrote to Prof. Bond, of Cambridge, announcing the 

 discovery. On account of stormy weather, the mails did not leave 

 Nantucket until October 3d." The comet was seen by Father de 

 Vico at Rome, October 3d, and word of it was immediately sent 

 to Prof. Schumacher at Altoona ; by Mr. W. R. Dawes in Kent, 

 England, October 7th ; and by Madame Riimker at Hamburg, 

 October 11th. The priority of Miss Mitchell's discovery was gen- 

 erally acknowledged. The King of Denmark had offered a gold 

 medal to the first discoverer of a telescopic comet, but, dying, was 

 succeeded by a king not so much interested in astronomy. Miss 

 Mitchell, moreover, failed in securing priority of registry of the 

 discovery, according to the terms laid down in the king's offer a 

 thing that was impossible in those days before the Atlantic tele- 

 graph. Her claim was taken up and pressed by Edward Everett, 

 and referred by the king to Prof. Schumacher, who reported in 

 favor of granting the medal to her. A few months after this, in 

 1848, Miss Mitchell was unanimously elected an honorary mem- 

 ber of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, being the 

 first and only woman ever admitted to that society. She after- 

 ward became a member of the American Institute and of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Of the 

 meeting of this body in Boston in 1855, she wrote : " It is really 

 amusing to find one's self lionized in a city where one has visited 

 quietly for years. . . . For a few days science reigns supreme 

 we are feted and complimented to the top of our heart, and 

 although complimenters and complimented must feel that it is 

 only a sort of theatrical performance for a few days and over, 

 one does enjoy acting the part of greatness for a while ! " In 

 1849 Miss Mitchell, on the invitation of the late Admiral Davis, 

 undertook the computations, for the Nautical Almanac, of the ta- 

 bles of the planet Venus a work which she carried on, in addition 

 to other duties, for nineteen years. In the same jear she was 

 employed by Prof. Bache, of the United States Coast Survey, in 

 the work of an astronomical party at Mount Independence, Maine. 

 In 1854 she records her "sweeping" of the heavens a kind 

 of work she really enjoyed, though her back soon became tired 

 before the cold chilled her ; in March, seeing two nebulae in Leo 



