106 THR BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN ASTRONOMY. 



astronomy, although the observations upon which he depended were 

 the work oif others. He was the consulting astronomer of the American 

 Ephemeris and ISTautical Almanac from its foundation in 1849, audits 

 plans were shaped by him to an important degree. His relative, Lieu- 

 tenant Davis, United States Navy (the translator of Gauss's Theoria 

 Motus Corporum Owlestiuin (1857) ), was placed in charge of the 

 Ephemeris, and the members of its staff— Runkle, Ferrel, Wright, 

 Newcomb, Winlock, and others — most effectively spread its exact 

 methods by example and precept. Professor Peirce undertook the cal- 

 culations relating to the sun, Mars, and Uranus in the early volumes of 

 the Ephemeris. As a compliment to her sex, Miss Maria Mitchell was 

 charged with those of Venus; Mercury was computed by Winlock, 

 Jupiter by Kendall, Saturn by Downes, Neptune by Sears Walker. 



The Smithsonian Institution was founded in 1846, and Joseph Henry 

 was called from Princeton College to direct it. There never was a 

 wiser choice. His term of service (1840-1878) was so lung that his 

 ideals became firmly fixed within the establishment and were impressed 

 upon his contemporaries and upon a host of younger men. The interests 

 of astronomy were served by the encouragement of original research 

 through subsidies and otherwise, by the purchase of instruments for 

 scientific expeditions, by the free exchange of scientific books between 

 America and Europe, and by the j)ublication of the results of recondite 

 investigations. It is by these and like services that the Institution is 

 known and valued among the wide community of scientific men through- 

 out the world. 



But this enumeration of specific benefits does not convey an adequate 

 idea of the immense influence exercised by the Institution upon the 

 scientific ideals of the country. It was of the first importance that 

 the beginnings of independent investigation among Americans should 

 be directed toward right ends and by high and unselfish aims. In the 

 formation of a scientific 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 per- 

 sonal ideals were of immense service to his colleagues and to the 

 country. 



The establishment of a National Observatory in Washington was 

 proposed by John Quincy Adams in 1825, but it was not until 1844 

 that the United States Naval Observatory was built by Lieutenant 

 Gilliss, of the Navy, from plans which he had prepared. By what seems 

 to have been an injustice Grilliss was not appointed to be its first 

 director.! This place fell to Lieut. M. F. Maury. Gilliss had been on 

 detached 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 Washington (1845) contained men of 



^ He was, however, director during' tlie years 1861-1865. 



