180 PROCEEDINGS OF THE OHIO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



then in his seventy-seventh year, who delivered an oration which 

 will always be famous in the annals of oratory and of astron- 

 omical science. 



But the last available and apparently the last collectible 

 dollar had been sent to Munich to pay for the great telescope 

 and only the foundation of the building was laid. Turning all 

 of his private resources into the building fund. Mitchell made 

 an appeal to the intelligent mechanics of the city wdio had al- 

 ready shown great interest in the work. The response was 

 worthy of the skilled workmen of that period who were some- 

 thing more than "machine tenders." Within six weeks more than 

 a hundred men were at work on the building, men of all trades 

 subscribing for stock and paying for it in labor. When, in Feb- 

 ruary 1845, the great telescope arrived safely in Cincinnati, the 

 building was ready for its reception. Regarding the successful 

 accomplishment of this task Mitchell has left on record a brief 

 statement well worth repeating. He says, "Two resolutions 

 w^ere taken in the outset; first, to work faithfully for five years 

 during all the leisure that could be spared from my regiilar 

 duties; second, never to become angry under any provocation 

 while in the prosecution of this enterprise." 



Soon after this came the burning of the buildings of the 

 Cincinnati College, cutting off his only source of income, a 

 catastrophe which afterwards proved to be, in the interests of 

 astronomy in America, a blessing in disguise. Mitchell now 

 undertook the delivery of lectures on astronomy in all the prin- 

 cipal cities of the country. His success was immediate, and so 

 great that an interest in the subject was created among the many 

 thousands of intelligent hearers that was unquestionably the 

 initiative cause of the building of a half dozen splendidly equipped 

 astronomical observatories within the next few years. Twenty 

 years later Americans were in the front rank of the world's 

 astronomers, a position which they have had no difficulty in main- 

 taining from that day to this. 



Mitchell contested with Locke the invention of the Electric 

 Chronograph and although its first conception has been generally 

 conceded to the latter Mitchell was probably the first to apply it 

 to astronomical observations. 



