104 THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN ASTRONOMY. 



The Coast Survey began its woik in 1S17 under Hassler, a professor 

 from West Point, wlio inqiressed upon tlio establisliinent a thoroughly 

 scientific direction. Bache, his successor (a grandson of Benjamin 

 Franklin), was a graduate of West Point in the class of 1825, and took 

 charge of the Survey in 1843. He is the true father of the institution, 

 and gave it the practical efficiency and high standard which character- 

 ized its work. He called around him the flower of the Army and JSTavy, 

 and was ably seconded by the permanent corps of civilian assistants — 

 Walker, Saxton, Gould, r>ean. Blunt, Pourtales, Boutelle, Hilgard, 

 Schott, Goodfellow, Cutts, Davidson, and others. 



Silliman's (and Dana's) American Journal of Science had been 

 founded at ISTew Haven in 1818, and served as a medium of communica- 

 tion among scientific men. A great step forward was made in the 

 establishment of the Astronomical Journal by Dr. Gould on his return 

 from Europe at the close of 1849,^ Silliman's Journal was chiefly con- 

 cerned in the nonmathematical sciences, though it has always con- 

 tained valuable papers on mathematics, astronomy, and physics, 

 especially from the observers of Yale College — Olmsted, Herrick, Brad- 

 ley, Norton, ^N^ewton, Lyman, and others. In Mason, who died in 1840 

 at the age of 21, the country lost a practical astronomer of the highest 

 promise.^ Gould's Journal was an organ devoted to a special science. 

 It not only gave a convenient means of prompt publication, but it 

 immediately quickened research and helped to enforce standards 

 already established and to form new ones. The Astronomical Notices 

 of Briinnow (1858-1862) might have been an exceedingly useful 

 journal with an editor who was willing to give more attention to 

 details, but, in spite of Briinnow's charming personality and great 

 ability, it had comparatively little influence on the progress of the 

 science. 



The translation of the Mecanique Celeste of Laplace by Nathaniel 

 Bowditch, the supercargo of a Boston ship (1815-1817), marks the 

 beginning of an independent mathematical school in America. The 

 first volume of the translation appeared in 1829. At that time there 

 were not more than two or three persons in the country who could read 

 it critically. The works of the great mathematicians and astronomers 

 of France and Germany — Laplace, Lagrange, Legendre, Olbers, Gauss, 

 W. Struve, Bessel — were almost entirely unknown. 



Bowditch's translation of the Mecanique Celeste, and, still more, his 

 extended commentary, brought this monumental work to the attention 

 of students and within their grasp. His Practical Navigator^ contained 



'The Astronomische Nachricliten had been founded in Altona, by Schumacher, in 

 1821. 



2 See International Review, Vol. X, page 585. 



^First edition, 1802. Sumner's metliod in navigation (1843) — a very original and 

 valuable contribution from a Boston sea captain— <ind Maury's Wind and Current 

 Charts, begun in 1811, are two other notable contributions from a young country to 

 ail art as old as commerce. 



