N'a/ioiial Scientific and luiucalional fnslituticnis. 307 



Thus matters stand at present, and ^Ir. Adams strongly urges prompt, practical 

 action; and this scheme, with some modifications, and after our customary delaj's 

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

 extent. I am the more inclined tu the opinion as it has Ijeeu made clear in the 

 ])rogress of discussion that the estal)lishments referretl to }iccd not be so enormously 

 expensive as the}' generally are. In this matter we have been misled and discour- 

 aged by your own example, among others. We found that Cambridge Observatory 

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

 was over ^"r,ooo, to say nothing of an 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," btit it 

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

 point. To l)e sure, we can spend money for Florida wars; nay, for better things — 

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

 houses and meeting-houses of most liberal dimensions — for whatever, in a word, is 

 practicable — as 'U'e understand it -and especially so much of it as private enterprise 

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

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

 it nuist be acknowledged the ".sovereign people" move vslow: they biitton their 

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

 ca.se is better, for we find that much can be done at small e.Kpense. An establish- 

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

 ])oses to establish the National Ob.servatory on such a scale. On the contrar-s', he 

 thinks the Smithson Fund should be devoted to it for the present, and that not less 

 than ten years of the income will l)e required. A more explicit estimate is al.so 

 added, l)ut it will be sufficient to observe that it comprises, besides a salary of |;3,6oo 

 for the astronomer, funds for the compensation of four assistants, at $\,^oo each, and 

 two labourers, each at |;6cx): for the purchase and procurement of instruments, 

 130,000; of which >f2o,ooo might be applied for an assortment of the best instruments 

 to be procured, and |.io,ooo for a fund, from the interest of which other in.struments 

 may be from time to time procmx'd, and for repairs: for the library, f3cj,ooo, being 

 |io,ooo for fir.st .supply, and ^20,000 for a fund for an income of f r,200 a year: and 

 finally ^30, ocjo for a fund, from the income of which, |r,8oc3a year, .shall go to defray 

 the expcn.se of the %-early publication of the observations and of a Nautical .Vlmanac. 



It was the idea of Mr. Adams, in his later daws, that the vSinithsou 

 l)equest, or at least its income for ten years, should be ap'plied to the 

 fotiiidation of a national ob.servatory and the ptil)lication of the Nauti- 

 cal Almanac, alid he only abandoned it when an ol),servatory had aclu- 

 alh' 1)een estal)li.shed under the Navy Dei)artment in coiuiection witli the 

 department of charts and in.strttments. 



The establishment of an olxservatorv had indeed been prominent in the 

 minds of Washington and Jefferson, and was defuiitely proposed in Bar- 

 low's plan for a national institution, as w-ell as in the project for a coast 

 survey, submitted in 1837, in which it was proposed that there .should 

 be two ob.servatories, formed at a fixed ])oint, arotuid which the survey, 

 and jxirticularlythenatitical part of it, .should be referred; their sittiation 

 ])referably to be in the vState of Maine or lower Ivouisiana, .since from 

 them every celestial ol)ject observable, from the Tropics to the Arctic Cir- 

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

 however, since variotis considerations might occasion the desire of placing 

 one of the.se obser\-atories in the city of Washington, just as oljservato- 



