The Astrophysical Observatory 



425 



tained by an appropriation from Congress. In anticipation 

 of this, one or two of the principal instruments which would 

 take long in construction were ordered in advance of the 

 erection of the building which was to shelter them. 



Owing to difficulties which it is not necessary to rehearse, 

 the granting of a site, which it had been first proposed to 

 occupy within the extended grounds of the new park, was 

 deferred, and the following appropriation was made by Con- 

 gress in the Sundry Civil Act of March 3, 1891.^ It is proper 

 to record that it was largely through the interest of Mr. 

 Joseph G. Cannon, Chairman of the Committee of Appropri- 



codicil bequeathing $5000 for tlie purpose 

 of an astrophysical observatory, and this 

 sum was therefore paid by Doctor Kidder's 

 executor to tlie Institution. 



"A further sum of $5000 was likewise 

 generously presented by Doctor Alexander 

 Graham Bell to the writer individually for 

 the prosecution of the researches in astro- 

 physics, to which he has devoted much of his 

 life, but it has seemed proper to him, under 

 the circumstances, tiiat this sum should be 

 placed to the credit of the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution upon the same footing as the Kidder 

 bequest, and with the consent of the donor it 

 has been so transferred. I am, therefore, 

 desirous of here expressing my own personal 

 as well as my official obligation to Doctor 

 Bell for this gift for the increase of know- 

 ledge. 



" The initial step for the establishment of 

 an astrophysical observatory under the na- 

 tional government thus having been taken by 

 private individuals, it is hoped that Congress 

 will see fit to place it upon a firm footing, 

 and to make a small annual provision for its 

 maintenance. And it seems proper to men- 

 tion that the field of research to which such 

 a department of the Institution would be de- 

 voted, has been considered of sufficient im- 

 portance by the legislators of leading foreign 

 nations to justify the erection of costly spe- 

 cial observatories and to provide for their 

 maintenance with a staff of astronomers and 

 physicists of wide reputation. 



"The class of work here specially referred 

 to does not ordinarily involve the use of the 



28 



telescope, and is quite distinct from that car- 

 ried on at any observatory in this country. 

 It would in no way conflict with the work of 

 the present United States Naval Observatory, 

 being in a field of work that the latter has 

 never entered. 



" Briefly stated, the work for which the 

 older government observatories at Green- 

 wich, Paris, Berlin, and Washington were 

 founded, and in which they are for the most 

 part now engaged, is the determination of 

 relative positions of heavenly bodies, and of 

 our own place with reference to them. 

 Within the past twenty years all these gov- 

 ernments but our own have established 

 astrophysical observatories, as they are called, 

 tliat are engaged in the study of the constitu- 

 tion of the heavenly bodies as distinguished 

 from their positions ; in determining, for ex- 

 ample, not so much the position of the sun 

 in the sky as the relation that it bears to the 

 earth and to our own daily wants ; how it 

 affects terrestrial climate ; and how it may 

 best be studied for the purposes of the 

 meteorologist, and so on ; and it is an ob- 

 servatory of the latter kind that the donors 

 just mentioned appear to have had promi- 

 nently in view, and which it is proposed to 

 conduct (tliough on an extremely modest 

 scale) under the auspices of the Institution." 



1 Astrophysical Observatory, Smithsonian 

 Institution, 1892. For maintenance of /Vstro- 

 physical Observatory, under the direction of 

 the Smithsonian Institution, including sala- 

 ries of assistants and the purchase of addi- 

 tional apparatus, ten thousand dollars. 



