A MEMOIR OF ELI AS LOOMIS. 749 



The latitude and longitude of an observatory are constants to be. early 

 determined. Tliese were measured by President Day^for Yale College 

 in 1811. In the summer of 1835, Tutor Loomis, with such instruments 

 as the college possessed, a sextant and a small portable transit, made 

 numerous observations of Polaris for latitude, and several moon culmi- 

 nations for longitude. From these he computed the latitude and longi- 

 tude of the Atheueum tower. The longitude from Greenwich, though 

 obtained from a small number of observations, differs less than 2 

 seconds of time from our best determinations today. 



While in Europe in 1836-'37, Professor Loomis, as I have said, bought 

 for Western Reserve College the instruments for an observatory. Th<^se 

 were a 4-inch eciuatorial, a transit instrument, and an astronomical 

 clock. On his return he erected, in 1837, a small observatory at Hudson, 

 and in September, 1838, began to use the instruments. He had no 

 assistant, and by day had a full allotment of college work. Two hun- 

 dred and sixty moon culminations and sixteen occultations observed 

 for longitude, sixty-nine culminations of Polaris for latitude, along with 

 observations on five comets sufficiently extended for a computation of 

 their orbits ; these attested his activity outside of his required duties. 

 Some 3'ears later, when the corresponding European observations were 

 made public, lie prepared an elaborate discussion of these longitude ob- 

 servations, and published in it Gould's Astronomical Journal. A sixth 

 comet was observed by him at Hudson in 1850. 



It may not seem a very large output of work in six years' time to have 

 determined the location of the observatory, and to have observed five 

 comets. But we must recollect that the telegraph had not then been in- 

 vented, that the exact determination of the longitude of a single point 

 in the western country had a higher value then than it can have now, 

 and that it could be obtained only by slow and tedious methods. These 

 were moreover days of small things in astronomy in this country. At 

 Yale College we had a telescope but not an observatory. At Williams- 

 town an observatory had been constructed, but it was used for instruc- 

 tion, not for original work. At Washington Lieutenant Gilliss, and at 

 Dorchester Mr. Bond, were commissioned by the Government in 1838 to 

 observe moon culminations in correspondence with the observers in the 

 AVilkes exploring expedition for determining their longitude. These 

 two prospective sets of observations, both of them under Government 

 auspices and pay, were the only signs of systematic astronomical 

 activity in the United States outside of Hudson, when in 1838 Professor 

 Loomis began his observing there. In his inaugural address he asks: 

 " Where now is our American observatory ? Where throughout this 

 rich and powerful nation do you find a single spot where astronomical 

 observations are regularly and systematically made ? There is no such 

 spot." When he left Hudson in 1844, the situation was not largelj' 

 changed. Mr. Bond had removed his instruments and work to Cam- 

 bridge. The High School Observatory at Philadelphia had been erected 



