64 EDWARD S. HOLDEN 



and building the naval observatory had broadened his 

 mind. To the men just named, with Peirce, Gould, and 

 Chauvenet, and to their coadjutors and pupils, we owe the 

 introduction of the methods of Gauss, Bessel, and Struve into 

 the United States, and it is for this reason that American 

 astronomy is the child of German and not of Enghsh science. 



The most natural evolution might seem to have been 

 for Americans to follow the English practice of Maskeljnie 

 and Pond. But the break caused by the war of independ- 

 ence, by the war of 1812, and by the years necessary for 

 our youthful governments to consolidate (1776-1836) allowed 

 our young men of science to make a perfectly unbiased choice 

 of masters. The elder Bond (William Cranch Bond, born 

 1789, director of Harvard College: observatory, 1840-1859) 

 was one of the older school and received his impetus from 

 British sources during a visit to England in 1815. 



In estimating the place of the elder Bond among scientific 

 men it is necessary to take into account the circumstances 

 which surrounded him. He was born in the year of the 

 French revolution (1789); he was absolutely self taught; 

 practically no astronomical work was done in America before 

 1838. When Admiral Wilkes was seeking for coadjutors to 

 prosecute observations in the United States during the absence 

 of his exploring expedition he was indeed fortunate in finding 

 two such men as Bond and Gilliss. Their assiduity was 

 beyond praise and it led each of them to important duties. 

 Bond became the founder and director of the observatory of 

 Harvard college, while Gilliss is the father of the United 

 States naval observatory at Washington, as well as that of 

 Santiago de Chile, the oldest observatory in South America. 

 Cambridge, though the seat of the most ancient university 

 in America, was but a village in 1839. The college could 

 afford no salary to Bond, but only the distinction of a title. 

 Astronomical Observer to the University, and the occu- 

 pancy of the Dana house, in which his first observatory was 

 established. His work there, as elsewhere, was well and faith- 

 fully done, and it led the college authorities to employ him 

 as the astronomer of the splendid observatory which was 

 opened for work in 1847. At that time the two largest tele- 



