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80 
to an irregular action of the heart, from which he suffered 
much, and which finally exhausted his strength and ener- 
gies, — depriving him of that vigor of constitution with which 
he was originally endowed, and which might have arrested 
the progress of his last disease. 
In the autumn of 1844, Lieut. (now Major General) FRi- 
MONT offered Mr. Husgarp a position in Washington as 
computer of the observations for latitude and longitude made 
on his expeditions across the Rocky Mountains, and on the 
Pacific coast. These completed, and the interest of Prof. 
Bacue, Capt. Frémont, and Col. Benton being enlisted 
in his behalf by his successful and meritorious labors in Phil- 
adelphia and Washington, they obtained a promise from Mr. 
Bancrorv, then Secretary of the Navy, that his appoint- 
ment should immediately be made out for a vacancy in the - « 
corps of Professors of Mathematics in the Navy. He was” 
commissioned 1845, May 7, and immediately assigned to 
duty at the Washington Observatory, of which he continued 
an officer during the remainder of his life. He was elected 
a member of the “National Institute of Washington, 1845, 
January 14; of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and 
Sciences, 1849, October 24; of the American Academy of 
Arts and Sciences in Boston, 1850, August 15; and of the 
American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, 1852, 
May 7 
It would be needless, gentlemen of the Academy, did 
taste not forbid, for me to describe to you at any length, the 
embarrassments of astronomers, stationed at the Washington 
Observatory, while under the charge of the late Superinten- 
dent. Few of you, if any, can have failed to appreciate the 
painful conflict between self-respect and official proprieties, 
— between the emotions of the scientist, jealous of his coun- 
try’s reputation, and of the subordinate, whose duty in an 7 
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