470 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 232. 



once a virtue and a necessity in a military corps, 

 is quite imcompatible witli the spirit of scien- 

 tific investigation pure and simple. So long as 

 the Observatory is under a bureau of the Navy 

 Department it must, of necessity, like a navy- 

 yard or a receiving ship, be controlled by naval 

 regulations, and any relations which naval 

 officers may sustain to it must be governed by 

 navy rules regarding rank, short details of 

 service, assignments in regular order without 

 regard to sjjecial fitness or taste and other estab- 

 lished customs, absolutely necessary to military 

 discipline, but utterly irreconcilable with the 

 spirit of an institution devoted purely to scien- 

 tific research. The only satisfactory solution 

 of the problem is the removal of the Observatory 

 from military control. No half-way measure, 

 such as appointing a Director from civil life, 

 will avail as long as it remains attached to the 

 Navy Department. The amputation must be 

 clean and complete. 



If any attempt is made to accomplish this it 

 must be kept in mind that it is a fundamental 

 principle of bureau administration to get hold 

 of all you can and hold all j'ou get. It is ac- 

 cepted as an evidence of successful administra- 

 tion to have added one or more new functions 

 to the office which you happen to hold, and it is 

 considered almost disgraceful to allow another 

 bureau to begin operations in a field which you 

 have traditionally cultivated, however unrelated 

 they may be to the work for which your corps 

 was originally organized. Much of the useless 

 duplication of government work is due to this. 



It must also be remembered that Congress 

 concerns itself very little with what ought to be 

 done, but that it is very greatly influenced by 

 what it is made to believe the people want done. 

 As far as the interests of astronomy go, astron- 

 omers are the people. Whenever they are 

 ready to unite in a persistent effort to secure 

 reform in the Naval Observatory, whenever 

 they are willing to exert their influence in favor 

 of making it a real national establishment, 

 directed by astronomers for astronomy they 

 will succeed. Naturally there will be a few 

 naval officers who will seriously oppose any 

 measure which deprives them of such agreeable 

 shore duty, but the great majority of them know 

 very well that to them professional distinction 



is to be reached through skill in handling a 10- 

 inch gun rather than a 26-inch objective and 

 that the experience of commanding a battleship 

 is vastly more valuable than anything to be 

 gained in the performance of the petty routine 

 duties of superintending an institution in whose 

 work they have little real interest and no en- 

 thusiasm. X. C. Mendenhall. 

 WoECESTER Polytechnic Institute. 



To THE Editor of Science : I beg to offer 

 the following replies to the questions you raise 

 with reference to a national astronomical ob- 

 servatory. 



First, it is desirable that the government of 

 the United States should maintain an astro- 

 nomical observatory. The experience of the 

 past two hundred years seems to demonstrate 

 that there are certain kinds of scientific work 

 that cannot be successfully carried on without 

 the express sanction and support of stable gov- 

 ernments. 



Astronomy, geodesy and geology are the 

 most striking instances of such work, and it is 

 hardly conceivable that they could have at- 

 tained their existing degree of utility except for 

 the aid extended to them by the leading gov- 

 ernments. That the maintenence of such work 

 is second only in importance in national econ- 

 omy to the maintenance of law and order, 

 and to the diffusion of education, is a proposi- 

 tion which few readers of Science are likely to 

 controvert. 



Secondly, the chief objects of a national 

 astronomical observatory seem to fall under 

 the following heads : (a) the registration of 

 continuous series of observations of the sun, 

 moon, planets and fixed stars ; (b) the prep- 

 aration of ephemerides of these celestial bodies 

 for the use of surveyors, geodesists and navi- 

 gators ; (c) theoretical investigations with refer- 

 ence to the motions and physical properties of 

 the celestial bodies, and with reference to the 

 instruments, appliances and methods used in 

 astronomical observations and computations ; 

 (d) the cooperation with other similar organiza- 

 tions in astronomical undertakings of inter- 

 national importance. 



Thirdly, it may be said that the existing 

 Naval Observatory has fulfilled and still fulfills 



