The Three Secretaries 203 



the equatorial and the meridian circles, and prepared the 

 observatory for practical work, an experience which was to 

 be of much service to him in the greater responsibilities of 

 his next field of duty. 



In the following year he was invited to become Director of 

 the Allegheny Observatory, and Professor of Astronomy and 

 Physics in the Western University of Pennsylvania, with 

 which this observatory was connected. The university was 

 in Pittsburg, but the observatory was seated on the crest 

 of a lofty hill in the adjacent city of Allegheny. This posi- 

 tion he accepted with the expectation of occupying it for a 

 short time only ; but in Pittsburg and Allegheny he was 

 to remain and labor for twenty years to come. 



In 1887 he was appointed by Professor Baird First Assis- 

 tant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, in charge of 

 Library and Exchanges. He still retained his place in Pitts- 

 burg, where he passed part of the year, but owing to the 

 failing health of Professor Baird it soon became necessary 

 for him to assume the duties of Acting Secretary. After the 

 death of Professor Baird in 1887, he was elected to the Sec- 

 retaryship. 



II. 



From early boyhood he was interested in the very questions 

 to which the studies of his later years have been devoted. In 

 regard to this he has recently related some very suggestive 

 reminiscences : 



" I cannot remember when I was not interested in astron- 

 omy. I remember reading books upon the subject as early 

 as at nine, and when I was quite a boy I learned how to make 

 little telescopes, and studied the stars through them. Later 

 I made some larger ones, and though they were, of course, 

 nothing like those we use here, I think myself they were very 



