6o EDWARD S. HOLDEN 



lishment a thoroughly scientific direction. Bache, his suc- 

 cessor (a grandson of Benjamin FrankHn), was a graduate of 

 West Point in the class of 1825, and took charge of the survey 

 in 1843. He is the true father of the institution, and gave 

 it the practical efficiency and high standard which character- 

 ized its work. He called around him the flower of the army 

 and navy, and was ably seconded by the permanent corps of 

 civilian assistants — Walker, Saxton, Gould, Dean, Blunt, 

 Pourtales, Boutelle, Hilgard, Schott, Goodfellow, Cutts, 

 Davidson, and others. 



Silliman's (and Dana's) American Journal of Science had 

 been founded at New Haven in 1818, and served as a medium 

 of communication among scientific men. A great step for- 

 ward was made in the establishment of the Astronomical 

 Journal by Dr. Gould on his return from Europe at the close 

 of 1849. Silliman's journal was chiefly concerned in the non 

 mathematical sciences, though it has always contained 

 valued papers on mathematics, astronomy, and physics, 

 especially from the observers of Yale college — Olmstead, Her- 

 rick, Bradley, Norton, Newton, Lyman, and others. In 

 Mason, who died in 1840 at the age of 21, the country lost a 

 practical astronomer of the highest promise. Gould's journal 

 was an organ devoted to a special science. It not only gave 

 a convenient means of prompt publication, but it immediately 

 quickened research and helped to enforce standards already 

 established and to form new ones. The astronomical notices 

 of Brimnow (1858-1862) might have been an exceedingly 

 useful journal with an editor who was willing to give more 

 attention to details, but in spite of Brlinnow's charming per- 

 sonality and great ability, it had comparatively little influ- 

 ence on the progress of the science. 



The translation of the Mecanique Celeste of Laplace by 

 Nathaniel Bowditch, the supercargo of a Boston ship (1815- 

 1817), marks the beginning of an independent mathematical 

 school in America. The first volume of the translation ap- 

 peared in 1829. At that time there were not more than two 

 or three persons in the country who could read it critically. 

 The works of the great mathematicians and astronomers of 



