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Peay og 
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yations ; but the duties of his office, as teacher, left him little 
opportunity for continued research. 
It was in this same year, 1838, that the money bequeathed 
by Smithson to found that noble institution which will render 
his name immortal was received by our minister in London. 
Mr. Adams, then a member of the House of Representa- 
tives, again exerted his most strenuous efforts to secure the 
establishment of an astronomical observatory as a part of 
the institution. He immediately waited on President Van 
Buren, and, in a long interview, urged his views of the sub- 
ject. A few months later, at the call of the Secretary of 
State, he reduced his views to writing, advocating the 
application of part of the fund to the establishment of a 
great observatory, and of a Nautical Almanac. Mr. Van 
Buren expressed his concurrence with the views, but never 
acted in the premises. 
Indeed, so bitter was the rancor of political partisanship 
at this time, and so intense the hatred entertained by the 
then dominant section of the country against Mr. Adams, 
that, to use the language of his biographer, opposition to the 
design became identified with party spirit, and to defeat it 
no language of contempt or of ridicule was omitted by the 
partisans of General Jackson. In every appropriation which 
it was apprehended might be converted to its accomplish- 
‘Ment, the restriction “and to no other” was carefully 
inserted. In the second section of an act passed on the 
10th July, 1832, providing for the survey of the coasts of 
the United States, the following limitation was inserted by 
the Naval Committee: “ Provided, that nothing in this act, 
or in the act hereby revived, shall be construed to authorize 
__ the construction or maintenance of a permanent Astronomt- 
eal Observatory.” Yet, at the time of passing this act, it 
Was well understood that a part of the appropriation it con- 
