SOME BEGINNINGS IN SCIENCE. 



767 



1813, a native of Connecticut, and a descendant of John Eliot, the 

 apostle to the Indians. Phillips was an Englishman, and a son of 

 a clergyman of the Church of England. 



Upon its completion in 1827 the instruments were moved into 

 the observatory, where observations were made by Dr. Caldwell 

 and his colleagues. The materials used in the building were very 

 poor ; the bricks in the wall soon crumbled, and it became neces- 

 sary, soon after the death of Dr. Caldwell, in January, 1835, to 

 remove the instruments. The building then went rapidly to 

 decay, and fell a victim to fire in 1838. 



Observations were, however, continued by Dr. Elisha Mitchell 

 in the attic of the large wooden building which he used as a 

 chemical and metallurgical laboratory. In each end of the attic 

 were two large windows, and in the roof eight others, four on 

 either side. These observations were continued until the summer 

 of 1857, when Prof. Mitchell lost his life upon the highest peak 

 east of the Mississippi River, the mountain which bears his name. 

 By his observations in 1835, 1838, 1844, and 1856 he had estab- 

 lished the fact that the 

 peaks of the Black Moun- 

 tains in North Carolina 

 are the highest east of 

 the Mississippi. 



Prof. Phillips has told 

 us that in order " to study 

 the constellations and to 

 show them to his pupils, 

 Dr. Caldwell built on the 

 top of his own residence 

 a platform surrounded 

 by a railing. Here he 

 would sit night after 

 night, pointing out to 

 the seniors, taken in 

 squads of three or four, 

 the outlines of the con- 

 stellations and their 

 principal stars, and the 

 highway of the planets 

 and the moon. Dr. Cald- 

 well also built in his gar- 

 den, where they still stand, two pillars of brick, that their eastern 

 and western faces, carefully ground into the same plane, might 

 mark the true meridian. Near these pillars stood a stone pillar, 

 some five feet high, bearing upon its top a sundial for marking 

 the hours of the day." 



James Phillips. 

 After portrait by W. G. Brown. 



