6 Doc. No. 11. 



city of Washington, together with sundry documents containing estimates 

 of the cost of erecting the buildings necessary for such an establishment, 

 for the instruments and books which it would require, and for the com- 

 pensation of a principal astronomer, two assistants, and two attendants. 

 These estimates of expense were, however, prepared upon the principle 

 of providing the establishment at the smallest possible expense — to which 

 end it was proposed that it should be attached to the Engineer's office, 

 in the Department of War, and that the mathematical and astronomical 

 instruments already belonging to that Department should be transferred 

 to the use of the observatory. All this must of course be otherwise ar- 

 ranged, if the President and Congress should approve the proposal of es- 

 tablishing the observatory on the Smithsonian foundation. But that doc- 

 ument contains much valuable information, which may be made availa- 

 ble whenever an observatory shall be erected. It is No. 124, House 

 documents of the first session of the 19th Congress. 



In the estimate of expenses at that time, by the Chief Engineer, he 

 assigned for the necessary buildings only 14,500 dollars. But as it is 

 desirable that the principal building, the observatory itself, should be, for 

 the purposes of observation, unsurpassed by any other edifice constructed 

 for the same purposes, I would devote one year's interest from the fund 

 to the construction of the buildings; a second and third, to constitute a 

 fund from the income of which the salaries of the astronomer, his as- 

 sistants and attendants, should be paid ; a fourth and fifth, for the neces- 

 sary instruments and books ; a sixth and seventh, for a fund from the in- 

 come of which the expense should be defrayed of publishing the ephe- 

 meris of obnervalions, and a yearly nautical almanac. These appropria- 

 tions may be so distributed as to apply a part of the appropriation of each 

 year to each of those necessary expenditures ; but for an establishment 

 so complete as may do honor in all time alike to the testator and his 

 trustees, the United States of America, I cannot reduce my estimate of 

 the necessary expense below two hundred thousand dollars. 



My principles for this disposal of the funds are these : 



1st. That the most complete establishment of an astronomical obser- 

 vatory in the world should be founded by the United States of America ; 

 the whole expense of which, both its first cost and its perpetual mainte- 

 nance, should be amply provided for, without costing one dollar either 

 to the people or to the principal sum of the Smithsonian bequest. 



2d. That by providing from the income alone of the fund, a supple- 

 mentary fund, from the interest of which all the salaries shall be paid, 

 and all the annual expenses of publication shall be defrayed, the fund 

 itself would, instead of being impaired, accumulate with the lapse of 

 years. I do most fervently wish that this principle might be made the 

 fundamental law, now and hereafter, so far as may be practicable, of all 

 the appropriations of the Smithsonian bequest. 



3d. That, by the establishment of an observatory upon the largest and 

 the most liberal scale, and providing for the publication of a yearly nau- 

 tical almanac, knowledge will be diffused among men, the reputation of 

 our country will rise to honor and reverence among the civilized nations 

 of th» earth, and our navigators and mariners on every ocean be no lon- 

 ger dependent on English or French observers or calculators, for the 

 tables indispensable to conduct their path upon the deep. 



In the document to which I have above referred, there is a letter from 



