ASTRONOMY" IN AMERICA. 
355 
able researches into the theory of Uranus and Neptune, has 
fulfilled the hopes thus expressed nearly a quarter of a century 
before his labours were brought to a successful termination. 
The work of the observatory thus happily inaugurated was 
prosecuted steadily till 1861, when Commander Maury left 
Washington to join the cause of the Confederate States. During 
the greater part of the war the observatory was under the charge 
of Captain Gilliss, who died on February 9, 1865. “ It has been 
noted as a strange coincidence of circumstances,” says Professor 
Nourse, in the memoir of the observatory from which we have 
been quoting, “ that the last morning of his life witnessed an 
announcement of results deduced at this observatory which 
had fulfilled his long deferred hope of determining the solar 
parallax by simultaneous observations in Chili and in the 
United States. This announcement would have been peculiarly 
gratifying to him because these results were from the joint 
activity of the two observatories, founded through his exertions, 
five thousand miles apart.” 
From 1865 to 1867 the observatory was under the superin- 
tendency of Rear-Admiral C. H. Davis, and from 1867 to the 
present time it has been under that of Rear-Admiral B. F. 
Sands. Without further considering the work accomplished at 
the observatory itself, which has partaken of the general 
character of official astronomical research, we may consider here 
some of the special astronomical occasions at which the observers 
trained at Washington have assisted. 
The total eclipse of August 7, 1869, was closely observed by 
parties from the observatory. Professor Asaph Hall and Mr. 
J. A. Rogers, proceeded to Alaska ; Professors Newcomb, 
Harkness, and Eastman, to Iowa ; and Mr. F. W. Bardwell, to 
Tennessee. The observations made on this occasion were of 
great value and interest. The solar prominences had had their 
real nature determined during the eclipse of August 1868 ; 
and the American observers were not content to repeat the 
observations then made, but extended the method of spectro- 
scopic analysis to the corona. They also obtained photographs 
of the coloured prominences. The work accomplished by the 
Washington observers, together with the observations made by 
Dr* Curtis, Mr. J. Homer Lane, of Washington City (la.) and 
Mr. W. S. Gilman, jun., of New York, and Gen. Myer, U.S.A., 
form a quarto volume of 217 pages, with twelve illustrations. 
Of this valuable and interesting volume three thousand five 
hundred copies were printed by joint resolution of Congress. 
The superintendent of the Washington Observatory was not 
content with this. 66 Believing that the experience of its officers 
in their observations of the eclipse of 1869 should be availed 
of for the further elucidation of the subjects involved in such 
A A 2 
