334 MARIA MITCHELL. 



which shows that by that time she had caught up to or passed her 

 contemporaries. She was not yet twenty when an effort was made to 

 induce her to open a school for navigation. She declined, but whether 

 constrained by her own fears or those of the underwriters we are not 

 advised. 



The " Navigator," or, as the whalers were prone to call it, the 

 " Epitome," was the text-book of all the young men fitting to be 

 whalers ; but it was quite out of the question for any of these to com- 

 prehend the mathematics that lay hidden behind the practical formulas 

 of navigation, Maria Mitchell, however, was not content with the 

 letter, and undertook to reach the spirit of Bowditch's precepts. This 

 was not an easy task in those days, before Professor Benjamin Peirce 

 had published his " Explanation of the Navigator and Almanac," and 

 she was obliged to consult many different scientific books and the 

 reports of mathematical societies before she could herself construct 

 the astronomical tables. 



Tn 183G, her father became Cashier of the Pacific Bank and the 

 family moved into the bank building on Main Street. The next year 

 she was appointed Librarian of the Nantucket Athenreum, a position 

 which she held for seventeen years. The library was open to the 

 public only a few hours of each day, so that she had great opportunity 

 for reading and study, with the best authorities in literature and sci- 

 ence within reach. This library was destroyed by fire in 1846 ; but 

 the disaster created so much interest in other portions of New 

 England that means were soon supplied for building it up again, and 

 the library to-day is really a better one than it ever was before, al- 

 thouo-h it possesses fewer curious and original editions of old authors 

 than formerly. 



It was in this library that Miss Mitchell found Laplace and made 

 a special study of Bowditch's Appendix to the third volume of the 

 " Mecanique Cdeste," which treats of the orbits of comets; and 

 here, too, she read the " Theoria INIotus " of Gauss in its original Latin 

 form. This was at a progressive period in her father's scientific 

 career, and his daughter contributed to his success by tlie most de- 

 voted assistance. She helped in the observations at all hours of the 

 day or night that became necessary, and when her father was absent 

 on lecturing or business tours she maintained the continuity of series 

 of observations that he had undertaken. These two enthusiasts ac- 

 quired gradually quite a well equipped observatory. Mr. Mitchell 

 purchased an excellent telescope and a large celestial globe ; many 

 instruments were also loaned to him under obligations to supply data 



