EXPEDITION TO THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE. 197 



Much as the expedition succeeded in effecting, the continuous 

 labor of mind and body occasioned by the nature of the work, and 

 the limited number of assistants, together with the trying influences 

 of climate, seem seriously to have interfered with its complete success. 

 Lieut. Grilliss writes : 



We were on tbe further extremity of the continent, and so distant that the 

 "words of my earnest appeal for help, grew cold before they reached home ; mi- 

 mistakeably convincing me before the close of the first autumn, that ore of the 

 objects of the expedition could only be partially accomplished. Iliad hoped the 

 day was not distant, when astronomers would say. the American Navy has 

 mapped the whole heavens. The observatory at Washington, had commenced a 

 catalogue, intended to embrace all the stars that appear at a suffieifnt height above 

 its horizon. With sufficient force we could easily have tabulated the remainder, 

 and the noble work would have been a monument to the service for all time. But 

 it was not to be. There is a limit to physical exertion under every clime, and 

 we were not less human than our kind. I had only half the requisite number of 

 assistants for an undertaking so laborious; and, fixing that limit at the utmost 

 bound consonant with the preservation of health and vision, when my own time 

 was occupied in observations of Mars or Venus, until the meridian circle was 

 again in complete order, it was necessarily unused on alternate nights. 



But if the success of the expedition was not in every respect 

 commensurate with the ardent aspirations of it zealous and able 

 superintendent, there is one collateral result which will be hailed 

 with satisfaction by all friends of science — the establishment of a 

 national observatory at Santiago. Mr. Grilliss goes on to say : 



We had scarcely organized work systematically, before it was intimated to me, 

 from the university, that the government (of Chile,) would probably establish an 

 observatory at our departure, and to this end was desirous to have one of the pro- 

 fessors of mathematics, and two of the most advanced and promising students of 

 the National Institute, acquire a knowledge of the instruments. The utility of 

 such an establishment, and the honor it would reflect on the country, had been 

 urged by the Chilean Ambassador at Washington, prior to our departure from the 

 United States ; and it was a source of no little gratification to me, to witness 

 the incipient step promptly taken towards the realization of an object so noble. 

 *********** 



Throughout nearly the three years of our residence at Santiago, the government 

 evinced the most earnest disposition to forward the objects of the expedition, aud 

 to extend every possible consideration to its members, officially and personally. 

 To its liberal aud enlightened policy on all questions of science, literature, or art, 

 the world is indebted for more than one valuable contribution; its schools of arts, 

 music, painting, and botany, the elaborate work on its natural and political 

 history, and its geological topographical survey, are all evidences of its generous 

 patronage. The culminating step was yet to be taken ; and there was a time 

 when we had looked forward to this — the establishment of a national observa- 

 tory at our departure, with something approaching to certainty. * * * 

 Leai'ning that my observations would cease about the middle of September, 

 Professor Domeyko, then rector of the National Institute, was authorized to say 



