CHAPTER IV 

 His Astronomical Work 



Maury took charge, on July 1, 1842, of the Depot of 

 Charts and Instruments, of which he had just been made 

 the superintendent by Secretary of the Navy Upshur. 

 This depot had been estabHshed by the Navy Depart- 

 ment in 1830, and Lieutenants Goldsborough, Wilkes, 

 and Gilliss in succession had been its former superintend- 

 ents. Wilkes had moved it from the western part of the 

 city to Capitol Hill probably, as has been suggested, 

 that its virtues and its needs might the more readily be 

 noticed by Congress. Be that as it may, Congress 

 passed an act on August 31, 1842, appropriating the sum 

 of $35,000 for supplying adequate buildings and equip- 

 ment for the depot. On the same day was passed 

 another act, which dissolved the Board of Navy Com- 

 missioners that had ruled the navy for twenty-seven 

 years and had recently been attacked so forcefully by 

 Maury, and established the Bureau System in its place. 

 The Depot of Charts and Instruments, accordingly, was 

 placed under the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography. 



Immediately after becoming superintendent, Maury 

 moved the depot to a building between 24th and 25th 

 Streets, N. W., known formerly as 2222-24 Pennsylvania 

 Avenue, and to the rather limited accommodations here 

 he brought his family. Meanwhile a new building was 

 being constructed on a reservation at 23d and E Streets, 

 N. W., where the Naval Medical School is now located, — 

 a site covering about seventeen acres which had been 

 reserved by General Washington for a great university. 



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