ages of the world. Its importance, interest, value, and necessity 

 have been too well and often asserted and conceded for me to in- 

 dulge in a disquisition on the subject, even did time and space 

 allow me to dilate upon a topic so well suited to exercise the reason, 

 delight the fancy, improve the heart, and give scope to the play of 

 imagination. Our own fair land, thank God, is not a sluggard in 

 the matter. Public attention has been attracted to the necessity of 

 constructing observatories and creating a body of scientific and 

 practical men, who may make that study a profession. The Go- 

 vernment of this Republic, amongst others, has deemed the subject , 

 worthy its most serious notice, and a bill to erect a small observa- 

 tory, in connexion with the Depot of Charts and Instruments which 

 was established in 1830, was introduced by the Committee on Naval 

 Affairs, through Mr. MALLORY, its chairman, on the 15th of March, 

 1842, and to which the observatory now in course of construction 

 under the superintendence of Lieut. J. M. GILLISS owes its exist- 

 ence. (See report No. 449, 27th Congress, second session.) It is 

 due to justice to state, and it is a fact of which I have personal 

 knowledge, that the passage of the bill in question was owing in a 

 great degree to the exertions and perseverance of that officer, to 

 whose care the edifice alluded to has been very properly confided. 

 Having been sent by the Secretary of the Navy to Europe, for the 

 purpose of visiting most of the prominent observatories of the old 

 world, of consulting with the most distinguished men of science 

 and astronomical knowledge, and procuring good and suitable in- 

 struments, Mr. GILLISS returned several months afterwards to this 

 country, and soon set about the construction of the depot ; that is, 

 in the month of April last, upon that fine and commanding site 

 called Univeisity Square. 



As the report of Lieut. GILLISS to the Secretary of the Navy, 

 dated Washington, November 23d, of the last year, may not have 

 met the eyes of some of my readers, who would like to learn some 

 details on the subject, I quote from that paper, as the best and most 

 condensed account that could be offered. 



The report states that the principal part of the new Depot is upon 

 the line of D street north, and is ninety-five feet above ordinary 

 high-water mark; that the central house is fifty feet square, two 

 stories and a basement high, and surmounted by a hemispherical 

 revolving dome, resting on circular walls, elevated eight feet above 



