438 Professor Ellas Loomis. 



erected, in 1837, a small observatory at Hudson, and in Sep- 

 tember, 1838, began to use the instruments. He bad no 

 assistant, and by day bad a full allotment of college work. 

 Two hundred and sixty moon culminations and sixteen occulta- 

 tions observed for longitude, sixty-nine culminations of Polaris 

 for latitude, along with observations on five comets, sufficiently 

 extended for a computation of their orbits ; these attested his 

 activity outside of his required duties. Some years later, when 

 the corresponding European observations were made public, he 

 prepared an elaborate discussion of these longitude observations, 

 and published it in Gould? s Astronomical Journal. A sixth 

 comet was observed by him at' Hudson in 1850. 



It may not seem a very large output of work in six years' 

 time to have determined the location of the Observatory, and 

 to have observed five comets. But we must recollect that the 

 telegraph had not then been invented, that the exact determin- 

 ation of the longitude of a single point in the western country 

 had a higher value then than it can have now, and that it 

 could be obtained only by slow and tedious methods. These 

 were, •moreover, days of small things in astronomy in this 

 country. At Yale College we had a telescope but not an 

 observatory. At Williamstown an observatory had been con- 

 structed, but it was used for instruction, not for original work. 

 At Washington Lieutenant Grilliss, and at Dorchester Mr. 

 Bond, were commissioned by the government in 1838 to 

 observe moon culminations in correspondence with the 

 observers in the Wilkes exploring expedition for determining 

 their longitude. These two prospective sets of observations, both 

 of them under government auspices and pay, were the only signs 

 of systematic astronomical activity in the United States outside 

 of Hudson, when in 1838 Professor Loomis began his observing 

 there. In his Inaugural Address he asks : " Where now is 

 our American Observatory ? Where throughout this rich and 

 powerful nation do you find a single spot where astronomical 

 observations are regularly and systematically made? There is 

 no such spot." When he left Hudson in 1844 the situation 

 was not largely changed. Mr. Bond had removed his instru- 

 ments and work to Cambridge. The High School Observatory 

 at Philadelphia had been erected and Messrs. - Walker and 



