16 



fr^ anr ^ 8 astotg* f rom Washington under the erroneous impression that his 

 ton - treachery had been discovered. il Only two hours previ- 



ous to his flight," says Dr. Gould, " he had waited upon the 

 Secretary of the Navy at his office, and gave no intimation 

 of any design to resign, or of any disloyal sentiment. It 

 was subsequently found that the preparations for his de- 

 parture had been for some time going on, but at the last 

 his haste was so great that sundry documents were left 

 behind which completely disclosed the fact that he had 

 been engaged in treasonable correspondence with the en- 

 emy." (" The U. S. Naval Observatory at Washington," 

 Dr. Gould, National Almanac, 1864). 

 Maury's dis- Maury was promptly dismissed the navy by order of the 

 Navybydirec- President, and Commander James M. Gilliss, the original 

 dent. 0i Command- builder of the Depot, became its Superintendent. 

 Superintendent 68 The exigencies of war greatly increased the labors of 

 the Depot, which consisted in the purchase, care, and dis- 

 tribution of compasses, charts, spy-glasses, chronometers, 

 and other navigating instruments used by the navy, while 

 the number of officers who could be spared for such work 

 was necessarily reduced by the same cause. 



During a period of four years there were kept supplied 

 with navigating instruments, charts, logs, &c, nearly six 

 hundred active cruising vessels, engaged in actual war, — a 

 number more than ten times that of the whole navy in pre- 

 vious years. 



Commander Gilliss early adopted the policy of encour- 

 aging American instrument-makers, by giving preference 

 to their instruments, when equally as well made as those 

 of foreign manufacture, and the result soon proved the 

 wisdom of his course. By the end of 1861, American sex- 

 tants, spy-glasses, and other nautical instruments were pro- 

 duced superior in quality and at a lower price than those 

 obtained from the most celebrated factories of Europe. 

 Transferof the Under the act of July 5, 1862, reorganizing the Navy De- 

 Depot and ob- p ar tment, the Depot and Observatory was transferred from 



servatory from 1 7 * l ^y 



the Bureau o f the Bureau of Ordnance to that of Navigation, while zeal- 



Ordnance to the 



Bureau of Navi- ously laboring to keep supplied with every needed chart 

 and instrument an active navy, suddenly and vastly in- 

 creased to meet the necessities of war, the Superintendent 

 determined that the Depot should not fail to fulfill also its 

 character as an observatory. Astronomical and meteoro- 

 logical observations were regularly and systematically 



