(5 
then Secretary of the Navy, to Lieutenant Matthew F. 
Maury, a young officer without scientific education or ex- 
perience, and with small scientific pretensions. A corps of 
three lieutenants, six midshipmen, and a machinist was as- 
signed him, and within the year four more lieutenants and 
three naval professors were added to this corps, in addition 
to the all-important, but unhappily very temporary services 
of the gifted and enthusiastic Walker. Surely with such 
an organization we might have looked for more than we 
received ; especially when we remember that Walker, 
Hubbard, Coffin, Ferguson, Keith, Yarnall were among its 
members. Honor to their names for what they did ac- 
complish. 
_ The influences which util this appointment.and the 
intensely mortifying treatment of Gilliss seem to have been 
ho very recondite ones, and can be readily imagined by any 
of you,— for it needs but a five years’ memory to recall 
those ancient days ; yet never in the course of fifteen years 
of friendship, an unrestricted intercourse, and a close in- 
_ timacy, did I hear one word of even pardonable bitterness, 
 ¢ither concerning this severe disappointment, or the neglect 
of astronomy by the officers to whom the Observatory had 
been assigned. “It was hard,” he would say, “ but an officer 
_ lust obey orders and not find fault with them.” On the 
_ Other subject he ever preserved a dignified reticence, and it 
is my firm belief that in his freest utterances he never spoke 
ne word expressive of the sentiments which we may natu- 
_ Tally suppose him to have entertained. 
From February, 1845, to July, 1846, Gilliss was occupied 
_ With the preparation of his observations for the press, as has 
been already mentioned, and at the close of this work he was 
4ssigned to duty upon the Coast Survey under Professor 
Seay While on this service he reduced for the use of the 
7% 
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