ASTRONOMY IN AMERICA. 83 



building was erected was quarried from the grounds of the society. 

 The lime was burned on the hill, and every means was adopted to 

 reduce unnecessary expenditure. Payment for stock was received in 

 every possible article of trade ; due-bills were taken, and these were 

 converted into others which would serve in the payment of bills. In 

 this way the building was reared, and finally covered in, without in- 

 curring any debt. But the conditions of the bond by which the lot 

 of ground was held required the completion of the observatory in 

 June, 1845. It was seen to be impossible to carry forward the build- 

 ing fast enough to secure its completion by the required time without 

 incurring some debt. " My own private resources," proceeds Mitchel, 

 "were used in the hope that a short time after the finishing of the 

 observatory would be sufficient to furnish the funds to meet all en- 

 gagements. The work was pushed rapidly forward. In February, 

 1845, the great telescope safely reached the city ; and in March the 

 building was ready for its reception." Unfortunately, just at this 

 time, when his private means were exhausted, Prof. Mitchel's profess- 

 orship was brought, in a very summary manner, to a temporary close, 

 in consequence of the college edifice being burned to the ground. To 

 recruit his means without abandoning the cause of astronomy, he gave 

 courses of lectures in the chief cities of the United States, meeting 

 with well-deserved success. 



The observatory thus erected achieved useful though not very 

 striking results. An observatory which was erected a year or two 

 later took so quickly the leading position, so far as the actual study 

 of the heavenly bodies was concerned, that the progress of the Cincin- 

 nati astronomers, as indeed of most of the astronomers of the United 

 States, received less attention than otherwise might have been the case. 

 I refer to the observatory at Harvard (Cambridge, Massachusetts). 

 Here one of the first equatorials ever made by Merz was erected ; and 

 by means of it W. C. Bond, and his son, George P. Bond, made highly- 

 interesting additions to astronomical knowledge. The seventh satel- 

 lite of Saturn (eighth and last in order of discovery) was detected, 

 the dark ring rediscovered and found to be transparent ; important 

 drawings of nebulas were made, and many other observations were 

 effected, under the administration of the Bonds. Later, under Prof. 

 Winlock, the Harvard Observatory has been distinguished by the ex- 

 cellence of the mechanical arrangements adopted there, and by M. 

 Trouvelot's admirable drawings of solar spots and prominences of the 

 planets Jupiter and Saturn, and of various details of lunar scenery. 



In passing, I may note that at Harvard, as indeed elsewhere in 

 America, others than professed astronomers have achieved very use- 

 ful astronomical work. As Prof. Mayer, of the Stevens Institute, 

 Hoboken, has turned his marvelous ingenuity in devising new meth- 

 ods of physical research to astronomical inquiries, so Prof. Cooke, of 

 Harvard, whose special subject is chemistry, made a most important 



