Natio)ial Scioilific and F.dncadotial I)isiitiitio7is. 307 



Thus matters stand at present, and Wr. Adams strongly urges pronipt, practical 

 action; and this scheme, with some modifications, and after our customary delays 

 and discussions (in Congress) will be carried into execution, at least to a respectable 

 extent. I am the more inclined to the opinion as it has been made clear in the 

 progress of discussion that the establishments referred to need not be so enormously 

 expensive as they generally are. In this matter we have been misled and discour- 

 aged by your own example, among others. We found that Caml)ri(lge Observatory 

 cost /" 20,000, and that, among the instruments, the price of the mural circle alone 

 was over ^i,o(X3, to say nothing of ah equatorial telescope at ^750, or a transit instru- 

 ment at ^,'600, and that as to Greenwich, the annual expenses, including .salaries, 

 repairs, and printing, exceeded ^'3,000. Now, this may be "sport for you," but it 

 knocked our calculations on the head. Our ideas are not yet enlarged to that extreme 

 point. To be sure, wc can spend money for Florida wars ; nay, for better things — 

 for internal improvements — for bridges over the Ohio river (St. Louis), or for market- 

 houses and meeting-houses t)f most liberal dimensions — for whatever, in a word, is 

 practicable — as ive understand it— and especially so much of it as private enterprise 

 can execute without calling in government aid:— but ask for the adornments and 

 muniments of art and science, in the ornamental or even in the scholar-like way, and 

 it mu.st be acknowledged the ".sovereign people" move slow: they button their 

 ■ breeches' pockets and begin to "calculate." As to the Observatories, however, the 

 case is better, for we find that nuich can be done at small expense. An establish- 

 ment, of the merely useful kind, may be set up for a trifle. Not that Mr. Adams pro- 

 poses to establish the National Observatory on .such a scale. On the contrary, he 

 thinks the Smith.son Fund should be devoted to it for the present, and that not less 

 than ten years of the income will be required. A more explicit estimate is also 

 added, but it will be .sufficient to observe that it comprises, besides a salary of |;3,6oo 

 for the a.stronomer, funds for the compensation of four assistants, at |;i,5oo each, and 

 two labourers, each at f6oo: for the purchase and procurement of instruments, 

 $30,000; of which fao.ooo might be applied for an assortment of the best in.struments 

 to be prociu-ed, and |io,ooo for a fiuid, from the interest of which other instruments 

 may be from time to time procured, and for repairs: for the library, 130,000; being 

 |io,ooo for finst supply, and $20,000 for a fund for an income of |i,2oo a year: and 

 finally 1:30,000 for a fund, from the income of which, |i,8ooa 3'ear, shall go to defray 

 the expense of the yearly publication of the observations and of a Nautical Almanac. 



It was the idea of Mr. Adams, in his later days, that the Smithson 

 bequest, or at least its income for ten years, should be applied to the 

 foundation of a national observatory and the publication of the Nauti- 

 cal Almanac, and he only abandoned it when an observatory had actu- 

 ally been established under the Navy Department in connection with the 

 department of charts and in.struments. 



The establishment of an observatory had indeed been prominent in the 

 minces of Washington and Jefferson, and was definitely proposed in Bar- 

 low's plan for a national institution, as well as in the project for a coast 

 sur\'ey, submitted in 1837, i^i which it was proposed that there should 

 be two observatories, formed at a fixed point, around which the survey, 

 and particularly the nautical part of it, should be referred; their situation 

 preferably to be in the State of Maine or lower lyouisiana, since from 

 them every celestial object observable, from the Tropics to the Arctic Cir- 

 cle and within about 20 degrees of longitude could be ob.served. Still, 

 however, .since various con.siderations might occasion the desire of placing 

 one of these observatories in the city of Washington, jtist as observato- 



