TWENTY-NINTH CONGRESS, 1845-47. 397 



been with great pleasure and profit, and with complete 

 sympathy in the noble enthusiasm of the author, that I read 

 the report of that gentleman, made to this House in 1842, 

 upon the disposition of the Smithsonian bequest. He 

 seems to have been imbued with a most exalted sense of 

 the sublimity of the great objects heretofore accomplished, 

 and hereafter to be attained, by the ardent and laborious 

 pursuit of astronomy. m Sir, there is no mind not wholly 

 destitute of elevation, and wholly ignorant of the stupen- 

 dous wonders and glories of the universe as revealed to the 

 gaze of "star-eyed science," who could read that able 

 report and not be deeply affected by it. I quote the follow- 

 ing passage : 



"The express object of an observatory is the increase of knowledge by 

 new discovery. The physical relations between the firmament of heaven 

 and the globe allotted by the Creator of all to be the abode of man are dis- 

 coverable only by the organ of the eye. Many of these relations are indis- 

 pensable to the existence of human life, and, perhaps, of the earth itself. 

 Who can conceive the idea of the earth without a sun but must connect 

 with it the extinction of light and heat, of all animal life, of all vegetation 

 and production, leaving the lifeless clod of matter to return to the primi- 

 tive state of chaos, or to be consumed by elemental fire. The influence of 

 the moon of the planets, our next-door neighbors of the solar system of 

 the fixed stars scattered over the blue expanse, in multitudes exceeding the 

 power of human computation, and at distances of which imagination her- 

 self can form no distinct conception : the influence of all these upon the 

 globe we inhabit, and upon the condition of man, its dying and deathless 

 inhabitant, is great and mysterious, and in the search for final causes, to a 

 great extent inscrutable to his finite and limited faculties. The extent to 

 which they are discoverable is and must remain unknown : but to the vig- 

 ilance of a sleepless eye, to the toil of a tireless hand, and to the medita- 

 tions of a thinking, combining, and analyzing mind, secrets are successively 

 revealed, not only of the deepest import to the welfare of man in his earthly 

 career, but which seem to lift him from the earth to the threshold of his 

 eternal abode; to lead him blindfold up to the council chamber of Omnip- 

 otence, and then, stripping the bandage from his eyes, bid him look undaz- 

 zled at the throne of God." 



I quote this eloquent passage to show, by the testimony 

 of one who understands the subject well, the character of 

 the results to be expected from the extensive cultivation of 

 astronomical science. I think it will be admitted that though 

 the discoveries now to be expected in that field will be well 

 calculated to elevate the soul and fill it with wonder and 

 amazement, nothing of a very practical or directly ^useful 

 nature in its bearing upon the immediate pursuits of life is 

 to be expected beyond the increased accuracy and extent of 

 observations necessary for nautical and topographical pur- 

 poses. I am by no means disposed to undervalue the im- 

 portance of this sublime branch of human knowledge. Nor 

 will I undertake to say that investigation of the heavens 

 may not produce new results, intimately connected with, 



