11 



altogether dependent upon the calculations of others 

 for the requisite tables to determine their position, and 

 to trace their path on the ocean to be obliged to bor- 

 row that knowledge, without which our fleets and 

 trading vessels could not venture to lose sight of their 

 own shores. 



This Institution attaches the greatest importance to 

 Astronomy. It stands in the first rank among the 

 sciences, and may, indeed, be termed the only perfect 

 science. It has contributed more than any other to the 

 development of human knowledge, carrying along in 

 its progress the physical and mathematical sciences, as 

 well as contributing to the advancement of the mechanic 

 arts, and, in this respect, acting as the pioneer of civili- 

 zation. The science of astronomy has swept from the 

 human mind the prejudices and terrors which were 

 formerly inspired by eclipses and the appearance of 

 comets ; it has determined, with extraordinary preci- 

 sion, the duration of the day as an unit of time, and, 

 counting from thence, the duration of the seasons to 

 that of the solar year, and of the different revolutions 

 of the celestial bodies ; it furnishes to history the pe- 

 riods to regulate the calendar, and positive rules to fix 

 the epochs of its chronology. Possessing the most com- 

 plete knowledge of the dimensions of the solar system, 

 it has reached such accuracy that it can determine at 

 pleasure, and with perfect exactness, what has been the 

 state of the heavens at a given period in past ages, and 

 what it will be in time to come. By this wonderful 

 knowledge, the celebrated astronomical ephemerides 

 are annually produced, by which the navigator finds the 

 movements of the celestial bodies calculated for him 



