A BBIKV ACCOUNT OP OUB WORK. 607 



preceding observers were very considerable in a multitude of cases ; bat we endeavored to pre- 

 serve a uniform system, and will reconcile discordances if we can. There were many errors in 

 Lacaille's work, at the Cape of Good Hope, and quite a number of his stars certainly do not 

 exist in the reduced places of the British Association publication; but we were only amazed 

 that he should have been able to accomplish so much and so well with a telescope only half 

 an inch in diameter, and in the brief space of ten months. 



It was a great satisfaction to work with an instrument like ours, but there was almost too 

 much of it. Out of 132 consecutive nights after the equatorial was mounted, there were only 

 seven cloudy ones! Of necessity, to afford so large a proportion, the air must be exceedingly 

 destitute of moisture a condition of things favorable to telescopic vision, but not so to eye* 

 employed during prolonged observations. To persons accustomed, as we had been, to heat and 

 moisture combined, the change proved, as has been intimated, exceedingly trying; but with 

 such instruments, and under such a sky, who that possessed the least particle of astronomical 

 enthusiasm would not have battled against the approach of human infirmities, though hard 

 to bear except when surrounded by friends eager to serve and soothe. 



"Out of sight, out of mind," runs the proverb. We were on the farther extremity of the 

 continent, and so distant that the words of my earnest appeals for help grew cold before they 

 reached home; unmistakably convincing me before the close of the first autumn that one of the 

 objects of the expedition could only be partially accomplished. I had hoped the day was not 

 distant when astronomers would say, the American navy has mapped the whole heavens. The 

 Observatory at Washington had commenced a catalogue intended to embrace all the stars that 

 appear at a sufficient height above its horizon. With sufficient force we could easily have 

 tabulated the remainder, and the noble work would have been a monument to the service for 

 all time. But it was not to be. There is a limit to physical exertion under every clime, and 

 we were not less human than our kind. I had only half the requisite number of assistants for 

 an undertaking so laborious ; and, fixing that limit at the utmost bound consonant with the 

 preservation of health and vision, when my own time was occupied in observations of Mars or 

 Venus, until the meridian circle was again in complete order, it was necessarily unused on 

 alternate nights. 



The first winter, with its frequent clouds, afforded great relief; though the extraordinary 

 continuance of similarly unfavorable weather in the spring, summer, and autumn months 

 became a trial of patience as great as had proved the almost eternal clear atmosphere. At the 

 commencement of J851 midsummer we began to think that the bright evenings enjoyed in 

 the preceding year were to have no counterpart; and as such a season had never occurred in the 

 memory of man, it of course was a constant subject of remark among all classes. That we had 

 been instrumental in such result, and had publicly prognosticated it, was as religiously believed 

 as their Bible, I was about to say; but they are not permitted to read "the good book," and 

 I more appropriately substitute their priests. Through the following and last summer we were 

 again favored. Between the 15th of December and 15th of March I had observations of Mars 

 on seventy-eight nights ! and out of one hundred and fifty-two, between November 10th and 

 April 10th, there were observations with the meridian circle also on one hundred and twenty 

 nights ! Thus we had the satisfaction to accumulate from a previously unexplored, or almost 

 unexplored field, an amount of astronomical data which has probably never been equalled 

 within a similar period of time. 



Astronomy was one of the blanches of science for whose advancement we collected materials; 

 magnetism and meteorology two others. For both the latter we were also supplied with good 

 instruments; those for meteorological investigations remaining constantly at our residence near 

 the base of Santa Lucia, arranged in the most appropriate places to afford correct indications. 

 Patiently and perseveringly did Mr. E. R. Smith record their fluctuations tri-hourly during 

 nearly three years, devoting one day (the 21st) of each month to hourly observations. When 

 illness incapacitated him on one occasion, the additional duty was distributed amongst us, each 



