12 
ADLER. 
Ills loneliness in the Allegheny observatory can be well 
imagined. Pittsburg of that day was largely engaged in 
adding to the wealth of the State of Pennsylvania, and in- 
deed of the entire country, and this astronomer and 
physicist, student of art and literature, philosopher and 
dreamer, was there almost as isolated as though upon the 
top of a lonely peak. He told me once that he attended the 
meetings of the Medical Society of the City of Pittsburg in 
order that he might have contact with professional and 
scientific men, and that he walked down and toiled up Ob- 
servatory hill once a week to spend Sunday evening in a 
room back of a drug store, in which four or five men would 
assemble to discuss the great things of the mind and the 
scientific problems of the day. It was a revelation to me, as 
I assume it will be to others, to learn from the letter of Mr. 
Langley quoted above that it was principally the desire to 
associate with others of his kind, and not ambition or op- 
portunities for work, which brought him to Washington. 
On January 12, 1887, Mr. Langley was appointed Assist- 
ant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In August 
of the same year Professor Baird died, and in November 
Mr. Langley was elected Secretarv by the Board of Re- 
gents. During his brief term as Assistant Secretary he 
had given much thought to the departments with which 
he was especially charged, the Exchange Service, the Library, 
and the Publications, and in these important agencies he 
* retained a dce]> interest. The Exchanges he regarded as one 
of the principal means for carrying out the terms of Smith- 
son’s bequest “for the diffusion of knowledge among men,” 
and to the Publications he gave an ever-increasing amount 
of thought, especially those which could be, to use his term, 
“understanded of the people,” developing the Smithsonian 
Report to such a point that today it appeals to every man of 
ordinary education and intelligence, and is in many places, 
where books and libraries are inaccessible, the sole and vet 
the entirely satisfactory means of keeping people abreast of 
the scientific advancement of the world. 
