SKETCH OF WILLIAM C RANCH BOND. 403 



college authorities took up the subject anew and appointed a 

 committee to form a plan for an observatory. Mr. Bond was 

 then about to make a trip to England, and his friends Farrar 

 and Bowditch procured for him a commission as agent of the 

 college to obtain information as to the construction and instru- 

 mental equipment of the observatory at Greenwich, and to make 

 such drawings as would be needed in constructing an observatory 

 for the college. He was requested also to obtain from the makers 

 the prices of instruments like the principal ones used at Green- 

 wich. " He performed the service," says the writer of the sketch 

 above referred to, " and reported in detail in the following year. 

 That nothing practical came of it for a quarter of a century was 

 not owing to the will but, comparatively speaking, to the poverty 

 of the college. 



" This result followed, however, that, upon his return, Mr. Bond 

 constructed the model of an astronomical dome, the operative plan 

 of which was the same as that of the great dome built in 1844, 

 and which has been in satisfactory use at Cambridge to the pres- 

 ent time. The chief peculiarity of its mechanism is in the method 

 of rotation by means of smoothly turned spheres of iron. The 

 dome rests on these at equidistant points, and, being set in mo- 

 tion by suitable gearing, the iron balls sustaining its weight roll 

 along a level, circular track of iron, the circumference of which 

 is equal to that of the dome. The method was unlike that previ- 

 ously in use. It appears to have been original with Mr. Bond, as 

 is perhaps evinced by a remark in his report for 1848 referring to 

 the matter : ' If carefully examined, it will be found that this 

 arrangement is as perfect in theory as it is appropriate and con- 

 venient in practice.' Experience has shown that spheres of hard 

 bronze are more serviceable than those of iron, and bronze is now 

 used." 



While Mr. Bond was abroad, he married, July 18, 1819, his 

 cousin, Selina Cranch, of Kingsbridge, in Devonshire. Return- 

 ing home, he went to live in Dorchester near his father's residence 

 in a house which he bought. On these premises he erected, about 

 1823, a small wooden building which he carefully equipped for 

 astronomical observations. This building is meant in the official 

 reference to the " observatory at Dorchester " found in various 

 publications. Its position, as given by Mr. Bond in 1833, was 3' 

 15" east of Harvard Hall in Cambridge. 



Mr. Bond now advanced rapidly in his favorite pursuit. " As 

 soon as his circumstances permitted," writes his son, "he im- 

 ported more perfect apparatus from Europe, and continued to 

 add to his collection until it was the best in the country." In his 

 little observatory " no eclipse or occultation escaped him, though 

 occupied in business during the day in Boston." After gathering 



