HIS ASTRONOMICAL WORK 47 



through the transit instrument of a star across the 

 meridian is the height of astronomical subHmity. At the 

 dead hour of the night, when the world is hushed in sleep 

 and all is still ; when there is not a sound to be heard save 

 the dead beat escapement of the clock, counting with 

 hollow voice the footsteps of time in his ceaseless round, 

 I turn to the Ephemeris and find there, by calculation 

 made years ago, that when that clock tells a certain 

 hour, a star which I never saw will be in the field of the 

 telescope for a moment, flit through, and then disappear. 

 The instrument is set ; — I look ; the star, mute with elo- 

 quence that gathers sublimity from the silence of the 

 night, comes smiling and dancing into the field, and at 

 the instant predicted even to the fraction of a second it 

 makes its transit and is gone ! With emotions too deep 

 for the organs of speech, the heart swells out with un- 

 utterable anthems; we then see that there is harmony 

 in the heavens above; and though we cannot hear, we 

 feel the 'music of the spheres' ".^ 



Maury's first volume of astronomical observations, 

 the first indeed to be issued from an American observa- 

 tory, appeared in 1846. Though this was pioneer work, 

 it was important enough to cause one of the most dis- 

 tinguished astronomers of Europe to conclude that it had 

 placed the American observatory in the front rank with 

 the oldest and best institutions of the kind in Europe. In 

 the appendix to this volume, Maury gives very generous 

 credit and praise to his helpers, among whom were at 

 this time the distinguished mathematicians Hubbard, 

 Keith, and Coffin; but he adds that he considers himself 



1 From *'The National Observatory" read by Maury before the Virginia 

 Historical Society. It was copied from The Historical Register in the Southern 

 Literary Messenger of May, 1849. 



