696 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



so certain did he feel it to be his duty, that he consented. On No- 

 vember 9, 1842, he delivered the address. 



The time required to mount the glass, financial depression, and 

 various discouragements prevented the completion of the building and 

 the arrival of the telescope till the spring of 1845, vehen Professor 

 Mitchel commenced his duties. He occupied himself in the ordinary- 

 routine of astronomical work. He paid considerable attention to per- 

 fecting instruments for attaining greater delicacy of observation. He 

 claimed to be the first (though he found a rival to dispute this honor 

 with him) to make a clock record its beats, thus obtaining a graphical 

 and more minute measurement of time. 



The pioneer of American observatories was not destined to be 

 long-lived. Before many years rolled round, the smoke from the 

 growing city at the base of the hill on which it stood rendered ob- 

 servations impossible. Its immediate successor, containing its instru- 

 ments, is located some five or six miles from the original site, and 

 other observatories, built afterward, occupy many a hill-top through- 

 out America. 



At the time the observatory was finished, an accident occurred 

 which at first seemed very unfortunate for Professor Mitchel, but 

 which in the end served to call out the full extent of his practical pow- 

 ers. The building of the college, from which he drew his only means 

 of support, took fire and burned to the ground. The observatory was 

 without endowment, and he had engaged to be its director for ten 

 years without compensation, relying for support on his college profess- 

 orship. He determined to enter the field as a professional lecturer on 

 astronomy. With characteristic boldness he proceeded to Boston, be- 

 lieving that if he could succeed in that critical city, where the arts and 

 sciences had been so thoroughly cultivated, and which numbered 

 among its own citizens so many men of high scientific attainment, he 

 could succeed elsewhere. He met with perfect success, and thus com- 

 menced that series of brilliant efforts in every city in the United 

 States which lasted for fifteen years. 



He published, in 1848, " Planetary and Stellar Worlds" ; in 1860, 

 " Popular Astronomy " ; he also published, from 1846 to 1848, the 

 " Sidereal Messenger," a periodical ; and after his death a fragment, 

 entitled " Astronomy of the Bible," was given to the public. These 

 works, though the progress of science and of thought has left them 

 now far behind, are still read by some who can discern in them the 

 ardent poetic nature of their author. But his great work in science 

 was in exciting an interest, wherever he appeared in person, to talk 

 of the wonders of the heavens. He never attempted to amuse an 

 audience, and never dropped below the dignity of the sublime subject 

 of which he spoke. When flights of eloquence came to him, they 

 seemed to meet him from among the lofty realms to which he as- 

 cended. Thither he carried his hearers, not by diagrams, not by 



