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presented to the House of Representatives. Believing the 
chances of success would be greater if a bill could be passed 
by the Senate, by the advice of Mr. Mallory, I waited on the 
Naval Committee of the Senate, but my entreaties for a per- 
Sy sonal inspection of our wants were put off from time to time. 
The question was probably decided by an astronomical event. 
. “Ata meeting of the National Institute, at which the Hon. 
William C. Preston was present, I gave notice of having 
found Encke’s comet with the 84 feet achromatic, the comet 
being then near its perihelion. A few days subsequently, I 
made what was intended to be a last visit to the chairman 
of the Senate Committee, and found Mr. Preston with him. 
As soon as I began the conversation about the little observa- 
tory, Mr. Preston inquired whether I had not given the 
notice of the comet at the Institute, and immediately volun- 
teered, ‘I will do all I can to help you.’ Within a week, © 
a bill was passed by the Senate. 
“Tt is hardly necessary to trace its progress in the House.. 
A majority was known to be favorable, but its number on the 
_ calendar, and the opposition of one or two members, were 
‘ likely to prevent action upon it; and that it did receive the 
_ Sanction of the House of Representatives at the last hour of 
the session of 1841 —42, the Navy is indebted to the un- 
tiring exertions of Dr. Mallory.” 
- Meanwhile Mr. Adams, on the 15th April, 1842, had pre- 
sented yet a third report from the committee on the Smith- 
Sonian fund in the form of a bill, providing for its adminis- 
_ fation on the same principles which he had advocated in 
: former years, and directing that the income already accrued 
should be invested as a capital, and its interest applied to the 
onstruction and maintenance of an Astronomical Observa- 
y- The bill failed; for as Mr. Adams’s biographer 
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