7 o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Representatives. The report of the committee, presented at this ses- 

 sion by Mr. Adams, should be read by every student of astronomy, 

 for the fervor of its eloquence and the nobility of the truths it enun- 

 ciates. Lieutenant Gilliss was equally unwearied in the cause. It 

 was by his diligent and successful observations that he secured the 

 essential confidence and cooperation of the Navy Department, and of 

 the naval committees. He was the first person, in the United States, 

 who gave his whole time to practical astronomical work. He first 

 published a volume of observations, prepared a catalogue of the stars, 

 and planned and carried into effect the construction of a working ob- 

 servatory, in contrast with one intended simply to teach. For this 

 arduous work he was specially gifted, possessing a wondrous acute- 

 ness of the perceptive powers of eye and ear. Prof. Peirce, after ex- 

 amining his observations from 1838 to 1842, gives him the second 

 place in the long list of observers, living and dead, whose results were 

 critically and searchingly tested by the so-called personal scale. 

 Profs. Bartlett, Kendall, and Walker, contributed largely by their 

 labors to the establishment of the institution. Their series of astro- 

 nomical observations, their publications, and the able report on Eu- 

 ropean observatories, by Prof. Bartlett, in 1840, had a powerful influ- 

 ence in rousing public interest in the subject, and, combining with 

 other influences, produced the desired result. 



In 1844 Commander Maury was appointed superintendent of the 

 new observatory, assisted by the same officers who had been attached 

 to the Depot of Charts. Under the instruction of the Secretary of the 

 Navy, the most extensive astronomical work was proposed in cata- 

 loguing the stars. The task set before the infant observatory, said a 

 critic in the North American Jieview, was "nothing less than assign- 

 ing color, positioD, and magnitude, to every star in the heavens, which 

 could be seen with the instruments." With the resources at the com- 

 mand of the officers at that time, it would have required a century to 

 complete it. The work was, however, commenced of making a cata- 

 logue of the stars down to the ninth and tenth magnitude. In 1846 

 the first volume of observations was issued from the press. In 1847 

 the observatory was first brought into prominence by the identifica- 

 tion of the newly-discovered planet Neptune, with a star of Lalande's 

 catalogue of 1795. Astronomers thus obtained an observation of 

 Neptune made fifty years before, which afforded the means of an ac- 

 curate determination of its orbit ; and the superintendent of the 

 "American Nautical Almanac" was enabled to publish an ephemeris 

 of the new planet two years in advance of all other parts of his al- 

 manac. In 1848 the institution first bore the name of "United States 

 Naval Observatory " instead of " National," an honor justly due to the 

 Navy Department which controlled it, and to the navy officers who 

 had charge of its interests. But the preparation and publication of 

 Wind and Current Charts absorbed the attention of the superintend- 



