National Sciciilific and Educational Institutions. 309 



history. Kncke's comet appeared in 1S42, and was promptly observed by 

 him. He read a paper concerning it before the National Institute. Sen- 

 ator Preston, an enthusiastic member of that orjjanization, was present 

 at the meeting. When Gilliss, still a very young man, shortly afterwards 

 made a visit to the Senate committee room, the Senator remarked to him : 

 "If you are the one who gave us notice of the comet, I will do all I can 

 to help j-ou." 



A week afterwards a bill passed the vSenate and House without formal 

 discussion. The appropriation was $25,000, and although it was 

 expressly for the estaljlishment of a depot of charts and instruments, the 

 report of the connnittee which had secured it was so emphatically in 

 favor of astronomical, meteorological, and magnetic work that the Secre- 

 tary of the Navy felt justified in assuming that Congress had sanctioned 

 the broadest project for an observatory. Gilliss was at once sent abroad 

 to obtain instruments and plans, while lyieutenant Matthew F. Maury 

 was placed in charge of the depot, and when the observatory was com- 

 pleted in 1844 became its superintendent. 



Maury's attitude toward astronomical work has been severely criticised, 

 and, I think, misunderstood. He was, first of all, an enthusiastic officer 

 of the Navy; second, an astronomer, and he deemed it appropriate that 

 the chief effort of the office should be directed toward work which had a 

 direct professional bearing. Although not neglecting astronomy (for 

 under his direction two volumes of astronomical observations were pub- 

 lished), his own attention, and oftentimes that of almost the entire office 

 was devoted to hydrographic subjects. The work which he had accom- 

 plished was of the greatest practical importance to navigation, and noth- 

 ing of a scientific nature up to that time accomplished in America received 

 such universal attention and praise from abroad. 



His personal popularity and his influence were very great, and the 

 necessity for the maintenance of a national observatory^ was not in his 

 day fully appreciated by the public. It is not at all impossible that, 

 indirectly, through his meteorological and hydrographic work, he may 

 have done more for the ultimate and permanent w^elfare of the National 

 Observatory' than could have been possible through exclusive attention 

 to work of a purely astronomical character. 



In 1 86 1 Gilliss again became the Superintendent, and under his direc- 

 tion the Observatory took rank among the first in the world. 



Before leaving the subject of the Observatory^ reference should be 

 made to astronomical work almost national in character accomplished in 

 colonial days at Philadelphia under the direction of the American Philo- 

 .sophical Society, by which a committee of thirteen was appointed to 

 make observations upon the transit of Venus in 1769. 



Three temporar}' observatories were built, one in Philadelphia, one at 

 Norristown, and one at Cape Henlopen. Instruments were imported 

 from England, one of them a reflecting telescope with a Dollond microm- 



