85 
Before a year had elapsed, the programme had been ma- 
tured, the formal concurrence of the committees of the two 
learned societies obtained, an equatorial telescope and a me- 
ridian-circle ordered and constructed, and Gilliss had re- 
ported to the Navy Department that the instruments and 
other portions of the equipment essential to the proposed 
observations were on their way to Chile, in charge of the 
officers assigned by the Department as assistants. Not a 
_ fortnight moré than the year had passed when Gilliss him- 
- self was on his way to Valparaiso, where he arrived by the 
way of Panama, in advance of the ship containing the in- 
struments and his assistants. 
The detailed account of the organization of the expedition 
is very interesting, and may be found presented at length by 
Gilliss himself, in the third volume of the Results of the Ex- 
pedition. The limits of this notice preclude any more 
minute description ; but the whole constitutes a most inter- 
_ sting chapter in the history of science in America, and one. 
no less important in its indirect influence than in its direct 
results. It was one of the earliest instances, if not the first, 
of deference by the legislative and executive authorities of 
the nation, to the views of the organized representatives of 
Science within its borders. Rarely before had they been 
‘Consulted when the weightiest scientific interests were at 
Stake, and almost as rarely had any formal expression of 
their convictions, however unanimous, availed to guide the 
Scientific policy of the nation. It was moreover the occasion 
of the first order to an American artist for a telescope of any 
Considerable dimensions, and to the truly patriotic spirit 
shown by Gilliss on that occasion, at the instance of our col- 
league, Mr. Rutherfurd, whose efforts in that direction are 
80 familiar to us all, may unquestionably be attributed much 
of that subsequent development of instrumental art of which 
8 
