SKETCH OF RMS BY MACKNIGHT MITCH EL. 699 



view. ' Stars which Struve had marked as oblong were divided and 

 measured ; others marked double were found to be triple.' He pro- 

 posed a new method for observing, and new machinery for recording 

 north polar distances or declinations. Professor Peirce reported favor- 

 ably on this method at the meeting of the American Association in 

 1851, and Professor Bache, as Superintendent of the Coast Survey, 

 indorsed their approval in his report for that year, presenting also a 

 full account of work done by the new method in observations made 

 by the enthusiastic astronomer and his patient wife, who assisted him 

 through all. It was claimed that the results rivaled the best work 

 done at Pulkova. Mitchel was the first 'to prepare a circuit inter- 

 rupter with an eight-day clock, and to use it to graduate the running 

 fillet of paper ' ; and to invent and use the revolving-disk chronograph 

 for recording the dates of star-signals. Professors Bache and Walker 

 had declined to adopt the first of these improvements in astronomical 

 appliances, through an apprehension of injury to the astronomical 

 clock. Mitchel's work proved the apprehension to be groundless. His 

 revolving disk is an invaluable invention. 



" To the perfection of such methods and instruments, together with 

 the routine work of observation, he gave all the energies not of ne- 

 cessity employed in outside labors devolving on him for his support. 

 Unhappily these, at an early date, became almost absorbing. For 

 the Astronomical Society, having secured their observatory and their 

 director, had failed to secure a basis for its support." 



Of his lectures, " Nature " remarks that he stirred up an enthusi- 

 asm by them " which quickened the movements resulting in the estab- 

 lishment of some of the first observatories of this day in the United 

 States." 



General Mitchel always acted with the incentive of genius rather 

 than talent, if such a distinction exists. Hence his proposals were 

 often regarded as impracticable. Their practicability depended upon 

 his energy, resource, and magnetism. Without these, they would 

 have been mere visionary schemes. 



His simplicity and purity of character, his earnest patriotism and 

 military foresight, are all minutely recorded in his correspondence. It 

 is expected that the record will some day pass one of its many chap- 

 ters into the voluminous history of the rebellion. 



