398 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



and highly important to, some of the economical purposes 

 of life. What I mean to say is, that the discoveries yet to 

 be made promise only, or at least chiefly, to gratify that 

 high and laudable curiosity which seeks to know and under- 

 stand, as far as human intelligence may, the sublime and 

 wonderful works of the Creator. ISTew double stars may be 

 discovered, revolving about each other, by the operation of 

 strange and unknown laws, the investigation of which may 

 be a subject of profound interest. Their compensating 

 colors, shedding a mixed stellar influence upon an intimate 

 and curious examination, may possibly reveal to some pen- 

 etrating eye new and important truths connected with the 

 theory of light. The occultation of Jupiter's satellites 

 enable us to measure its velocity with almost absolute ex- 

 actness. The contrasted colors of these wonderful binary 

 stars may eventually settle the question, if it be not already 

 settled, between the theory of undulations, and that of par- 

 ticles emanating in straight lines, and may, in some lucky 

 hour, to some favored son of genius unfold distinctly and, 

 forever the apparently intricate and now hidden relations 

 of light, heat, electricity, magnetism, and gravitation. A 

 higher and more complete generalization, of the great phe- 

 nomena of the universe may be accomplished, and it is 

 wholly impossible to tell how directly and immediately such 

 discoveries may bear upon the practical pursuits which con- 

 tribute to the physical well-being of man. Who, at the 

 present day, can calculate the influence exerted upon the 

 happiness of man, during successive generations, by the 

 knowledge of those three strange and wonderful laws, dis- 

 covered, not without long and laborious investigation, by 

 the celebrated Kepler ? Who can trace their consequences 

 in the subsequent discoveries of that science, or rather, I 

 should ask, what would now be our knowledge of the plan- 

 etary system, and our ability to apply it to exact nautical 

 purposes, if those laws, and all that results from them, were 

 at this day a blank in astronomical science ? That the 

 radius-vector of a planet describes equal areas in equal 

 times ! How simple a law, yet how pregnant of conse- 

 quences, incalculable in extent and value. 



Notwithstanding these admissions, and my deep convic- 

 tion of the great value of astronomical truth, I cannot think 

 that field of knowledge likely to be so productive of useful 

 fruit, that the Smithsonian fund ought ever to have been 

 directed entirely or chiefly to that object. But whatever 

 may have been the conflict of opinion in this respect, the 

 dispute is put to rest by the establishment of the Observa- 



