934 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 129. 



tific and, as it were, a moral standard a few 

 names will ever be remembered among us ; 

 and no one will stand higher than that of 

 Henry. His wise, broad and generous 

 policy and his high personal ideals were of 

 immense service to his colleagues and to 

 the country. 



The establishment of a National Ob- 

 servatory in Washington was proposed 

 by John Quincy Adams in 1825 ; but 

 it was not until 1844 that the U. S. Naval 

 Observatory was built by Lieut. Gilliss, of 

 the Navy, from plans which he had pre- 

 pared. By what seems to have been an 

 injustice Gilliss was not appointed to be its 

 first Director.* This place fell to Lieut. 

 M. F. Maury. Gilliss had been on de- 

 tached service for some years, and a rigid 

 construction of rules required that he 

 should be sent to sea, and not remain to 

 launch the institution which he had built 

 and equipped. 



The first corps of observers at Washing- 

 ton (1845) contained men of first-class 

 ability — Walker, Hubbard, Cof&n. Gilliss's 

 work as astronomer to Wilkes Exploring 

 Expedition (1838-42) at his little observ- 

 atory on Capitol Hill, had shown him to be 

 one of the best of observers, as well as one 

 of the most assiduous. His study and ex- 

 perience, in planning and building the 

 the Naval Observatory had broadened his 

 mind. To the men just named, with Peirce, 

 Gould and Chauvenet, and to their co- 

 adjutors and pupils, we owe the intro- 

 duction of the methods of Gauss, Bessel 

 and Struve into the United States, and it is 

 for this reason that American astronomy is 

 the child of German, and not of English 

 science. 



The most natural evolution might seem 

 to have been for Americans to follow 

 the English practice of Maskelyne and 

 Pond. But the break caused by the War 



*He was, however, Director during the ypars 1861- 



of Independence, by the War of 1812, and 

 by the years necessary for our youthful 

 governments to consolidate (1776-1836) 

 allowed our young men of science to make 

 a perfectly unbiased choice of masters. 

 The elder Bond (William Cranch Bond, 

 born 1789, Director of Harvard College 

 Observatory, 1840-1859) was one of the 

 older school and received his impetus from, 

 British sources during a visit to England 

 in 1815. 



In estimating the place of the elder Bond 

 among scientific men it is necessary to take 

 into account the circumstances which sur- 

 rounded him. He was born in the first 

 year of the French Revolution (1789) ; he 

 was absolutely self-taught ; practically na 

 astronomical work was done in America 

 before 1838. When Admiral Wilkes was- 

 seeking for coadjutors to prosecute obser- 

 vations in the United States during the ab- 

 sence of his exploring expedition he was- 

 indeed fortunate in finding two such men 

 as Bond and Gilliss. Their assiduity was 

 beyond praise and it led each of them to 

 important duties. Bond became the founder 

 and Director of the Observatory of Harvard 

 College, while Gilliss is the father of the 

 United States Naval Observatory at Wash- 

 ington, as well as of that of Santiago de Chile^ 

 the oldest observatory in South America. 

 Cambridge, though the seat of the most 

 ancient university in America, was but a 

 village in 1839. The College could aiford 

 no salary to Bond, but only the distinction 

 of a title, ' Astronomical Observer to the 

 University,' and the occupancy of the Dana 

 house, in which his first observatory was 

 established. His work there, as elsewhere, 

 was well and faithfully done, and it led the 

 College authorities to employ him as the 

 astronomer of the splendid observatory 

 which was opened for work in 1847. At 

 that time the two largest telescopes in the 

 world were those of the Imperial Observa- 

 tory of Russia (Poulkova) and its com- 



