352 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
Washington, Brooklyn, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Baltimore, 
Chicago, Columbus, Louisville, Kansas, and Minneapolis, and, 
in fact, at all the cities and towns which I visited, I received a 
generous and kindly welcome from the community, accompanied 
by acts of personal kindness from individuals, which I shall 
always hold in grateful remembrance. But this would not be 
the place to attempt the task — in any case no easy one — of 
attempting to express my sense of American kindness and 
hospitality. My present purpose is to indicate simply the 
remarkable progress made by Americans in astronomical science 
during the last half-century. 
Fifty years ago there were few telescopes and no observatories 
in America. It was not greatly to be wondered at that the 
nation should not up to that time have given any great degree 
of attention to scientific matters. The proportion of the popu- 
lation having leisure for scientific and especially for astronomical 
research was but small, and the government had matters of more 
vital importance to attend to than the erection of observatories. 
For several years the attention of Congress had been called to 
the necessity of a national observatory ; but when President 
Adams, in 1825, made a special appeal to this effect, his pro- 
posal met with ridicule and disfavour. 
The first action towards the initiation of astronomical research 
in America bears date March 1810, when it was proposed in 
Congress (by Mr. William Lambert, of Virginia), that a first 
meridian should be established for the United States (the meri- 
dian of the Capitol at Washington being selected), in order to 
obviate the “ confusion already existing in consequence of the 
assumption of different places within the United States as first 
meridians, on the published maps and charts ” in the country. 
The proposition was not at once acted upon. In July 1812 we 
find Mr. Monroe, then Home Secretary of State, indicating its 
astronomical bearing. “ In admitting,” said he, u the propriety 
of establishing a first meridian within the United States, it fol- 
lows that it ought to be done with the greatest mathematical 
precision. It is known that the best mode yet discovered for 
establishing the meridian of a place is by observations of the 
heavenly bodies ; and that, to produce the greatest accuracy in 
the result, such observations should be often repeated, at suit- 
able opportunities, through a series of years, by means of the 
best instruments. For this purpose an observatory would be of 
essential utility. It is only in such an institution, to be founded 
by the public, that all the necessary implements are likely to be 
collected together ; that systematic observations can be made for 
any great length of time, and that the public can be made 
secure of the results of the labours of scientific men. In favour 
of such an institution it is sufficient to remark that every nation 
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