10 SMITHSONIAN MISCELI.ANKOUS COLI^ECTIONS. 



professorship of astronomy and physics at the Western University 

 of Pennsylvania, at Pittsburg, with the directorship of the Allegheny 

 Observatory — a position which he held for twenty years. 



Arriving at Pittsburg, he was confronted by obstacles which to 

 a man not trained as he had been would have probably proved in- 

 surmountable. He found there, for his work, an equatorial tel- 

 escope of good size, used by an amateur club mainly for simple star- 

 gazing, but not equipped for scientific work ; and beside this virtually 

 nothing — no transit instrument, not even a clock. 



There was little chance for him to be helped over these obstacles 

 by private munificence. Since that time there has appeared a galaxy 

 of millionaires who have endowed Pittsburg with great foundations 

 in science, literature, and art, one of whom, indeed, has created 

 institutions which have aroused amazement and gratitude on both 

 sides the Atlantic; but at the young astronomer's arrival none of 

 these leaders had appeared. He had at once to meet the question 

 how to acquire, mainly by his own skill and toil, the instruments 

 necessary to make the observatory useful. 



His insight and foresight gave a speedy answer. He saw quickly 

 that a pressing need of the great lines of railway connecting with 

 Pittsburg, east and west, was a better standard of time. This had 

 been already seen at other American centers, notably at Washing- 

 ton, at Cambridge, at Albany, and elsewhere ; but it was only when 

 Langley at Pittsburg grasped the subject, both in its scientific and 

 business bearings, that there came a plan to meet American condi- 

 tions — useful, practicable, and widely extended. To him more than 

 to any other is primarily due the fixing of railway time standards in 

 the United States. The clock at his observatory finally gave, twice 

 a day and automatically, the exact time to every station on lines ex- 

 tending for eight thousand miles. 



He saw not merely the need of devising a system of time stand- 

 ards, but the practical methods of realizing it. He also made the 

 busy men about him see this need and grasp his methods, and from 

 them, in their own interest, he obtained the equipment of his observ- 

 atory. 



In 1869 he published his first two papers which attracted atten- 

 tion, the first being a brief report upon his observation of the total 

 eclipse at Oakland, Kentucky, and the second "A proposal for regu- 

 lating from the Allegheny Observatory the clocks of the Pennsyl- 

 vania Central and other roads connected with it." Thus came from 

 him, characteristically, a contribution to astronomy as a science and 

 the satisfaction of a public need. 



