848 PROPOSED APPLICATIONS OF SMITHSON'S BEQUEST. 



3d. That, by the establishment of an observatory upon 

 the largest and the most liberal scale, and providing for the 

 publication of a yearly nautical almanac, knowledge will be 

 diffused among men, the reputation of our country will rise 

 to honor and reverence among the civilized nations of the 

 earth, and our navigators and mariners on every ocean be 

 no longer dependent on English or French observers or 

 calculators, for the tables indispensable to conduct their 

 path upon the deep. 



In the document to which I have above referred, there is 

 a letter from Mr. de Wallenstein, then attached to the Rus- 

 sian legation in this country; a report from Major Kearney, 

 of the topographical engineers ; and extracts from a me- 

 moir of Mr. Francis Baily, respecting a new method of 

 determining the longitude ; all of which contain precious 

 information, both of facts and of encouragement to the 

 application of a strenuous and persevering effort, on the part 

 of the Government of the United States, to contribute their 

 effective aid, by this establishment, to the progress of phys- 

 ical and mathematical science. When the opportunity for 

 this is afforded by the munificence of a foreigner, without 

 needing the taxation of a dollar upon the people, I cannot 

 forego the hope that this opportunity will not be lost, be- 

 lieving that, of all the physical sciences, there is none for 

 the cultivation of which brighter rewards of future discov- 

 ery are reserved for the ingenuity and industry of man, 

 than practical astronomy. 



There is appended to the same Congressional document 

 a memorial to Congress from William Allen, president of 

 Bowdoin College, and sundry other distinguished citizens 

 of the State of Maine, praying for the establishment, at the 

 charge of the nation, of an astronomical observatory in the 

 town of Brunswick, in that State ; and a memorial of Mr. 

 Hassler, recommending two observatories one in Maine 

 and one in Louisiana." The memorial from Maine urges 

 with great force and elegance some of the general consider- 

 ations pointing to the usefulness and importance of an 

 astronomical observatory in the western hemisphere. But 

 it is doubtful, at least, whether any application of the 

 Smithsonian bequest can, in fulfillment of the testator's 

 will, be located otherwise than in the city of Washington ; 

 and if hereafter Congress should ever be disposed to appro- 

 priate any portion of the national funds to these elevated 

 purposes, observatories may be erected in Maine, or Louis- 

 iana, or both, which may be auxiliary to the labors of the 



