HARVARD COLLEGE OBSERVATORY,
_September 13, 1890_.
HISTORY
OF
THE HARVARD COLLEGE OBSERVATORY.
1840–1890.
The present is the semi-centennial year of the Harvard College
Observatory. A precise date cannot be named for the beginning, but
in the early months of the year 1840 the institution was gradually
organized, and before midsummer became a tangible fact and a working
adjunct of the college.
While the first astronomical observation is of record Dec. 31, 1839,
it is well known that the observatory had not then an official staff,
the appointment of the first director being of date Feb. 12, 1840, and
the confirmation by the Board of Overseers somewhat later. Moreover,
this particular observation and others immediately following were made
in continuation of work begun elsewhere and not identified with the
college affairs.
The advance made in astronomical science during the 50 years past is
among the wonderful facts comprised in the record of the 19th century,
and it is true that since it became fairly organized and equipped,
Harvard College Observatory has been in the front rank in the march.
A review of this progress so far as pertaining to the institution at
Cambridge, is, therefore, timely. A history of 50 years, embodying so
many facts of the first importance and interest as does this, cannot,
even with the most resolute purpose as respects brevity, be disposed of
in a single chapter. This, accordingly, will be the first of a series.
The reader may be assured at the outset that the topics to be touched
upon are various and in themselves attractive, and that, so far as
possible, technicalities will be shunned.
Regarding the period of beginning just referred to as the blossoming,
whence has followed abundant fruitage, it may be remarked that a
long time passed between the budding and the blossoming, and that
indications of the flow of a vital current are recognizable at as
remote a date as 1761. In that year the sloop owned by the province
of Massachusetts was fitted out at public cost to convey Prof.
John Winthrop and others connected with the college, provided with
instruments belonging to the college, to Newfoundland, for observation
of a transit of Venus. In 1780, notwithstanding the financial straits
incident to the war, the commonwealth provided a small vessel of war,
called a “galley,” to take Prof. Samuel Williams, of the college,
and party to Penobscot to observe a total eclipse of the sun. The
first definite record pointing to a college observatory is of date
1805, when John Lowell, the uncle of that John Lowell who founded
the Lowell Institute, being in Paris, consulted with Delambre, an
astronomer of note, and procured from him written instructions as to
suitable buildings and instruments for an observatory. This document
was sent to the college authorities at Cambridge. No official action
followed. The next of record is that the college authorities in 1815
appointed a committee to consider and report upon an eligible plan
for an observatory. This is supposed to have been the first corporate
action taken in the United States, having such an object in view. The
doings of this committee are notable in two particulars, at least.
They brought into official relations with the college for the first
time, the man who was destined to be the builder and organizer of the
observatory, 25 years later, William Cranch Bond.
He was about to visit Europe and was appointed the agent of the college
to obtain information as to the construction and instrumental equipment
of the observatory at Greenwich, and to make such plans, drawings,
etc., as would enable him or another to construct an astronomical
observatory at Cambridge; also to ascertain from the makers the cost
of certain principal instruments like those at Greenwich. He performed
the service and reported in detail in the following year. That nothing
practical came of it for a quarter of a century was not owing to the
will, but comparatively speaking, to the poverty of the college.
This result followed, however,—and it may be reckoned the second
notable circumstance—that, upon his return, Mr. Bond constructed
the model of an astronomical dome, the operative plan of which was
the same as that of the great dome, built in 1844, and which has
been in satisfactory use at Cambridge to the present time. The chief
peculiarity of its mechanism is in the method of rotation by means
of smoothly-turned spheres of iron. The dome rests on these at
equi-distant points, and, being set in motion by suitable gearing, the
iron balls sustaining its weight roll along a level circular track of
iron, the circumference of which is equal to that of the dome. The
method was unlike that previously in use. It appears to have been
original with Mr. Bond, as is perhaps evinced by a remark in his
report for 1848 referring to the matter: “If carefully examined, it
will be found that this arrangement is as perfect in theory as it is
appropriate and convenient in practice.” Experience has shown that
spheres of hard bronze are more serviceable than those of iron, and
bronze is now used.
[Illustration: THE DANA HOUSE.]
The record indicates that an observatory did not cease to be a coveted
object at any time during the 25 years prior to 1840. Two antecedent
events, in themselves of importance, combined to bring the long
cherished project to a happy issue,—the accession of Josiah Quincy to
the presidency of the college and the action of Congress in authorizing
what came to be popularly known as the “Wilkes Exploring Expedition.”
The purpose of the expedition in part was to establish the latitudes
and longitudes of uncharted places in distant parts of the world where
American commerce was extending, and in part to investigate natural
phenomena, including the facts of terrestrial magnetism. Having,
after much delay, got an adequate appropriation, the naval department
employed the best available talent of the country for the conduct of
the enterprise.
Mr. Bond was engaged to make at his private observatory in Dorchester,
Mass., investigations to fix a zero of longitude, whence final
reference to Greenwich might be had, and to make a continuous record of
magnetic observations at Dorchester for comparison with like records
obtained at distant points by the expedition itself. As preliminary
to the latter work, Mr. Bond tested in an isolated observatory in
Dorchester the magnetic instruments with which the expedition was to be
equipped.
Mr. Bond’s talents were as well known at Cambridge as at Washington.
What Mr. Quincy did in the premises can best be stated in his own
words: “Early in the year 1839, the exploring expedition then being in
the Southern ocean, it occurred to the president of the university that
if Mr. Bond could be induced to transfer his residence and apparatus
to Cambridge and pursue his observations there, under the auspices of
the university, it would have an important influence in clearing the
way for an establishment of an efficient observatory in connection with
that seminary, by the increase of the apparatus at its command, by the
interest which the observations making by Mr. Bond were calculated to
excite, and, by drawing the attention of the citizens of Boston and
its vicinity to the great inadequacy of the means possessed by the
university for efficient astronomical observations, create a desire and
a disposition to supply them.”
This proposition, Mr. Quincy says in another connection, he made
without having consulted with the corporation. That body sanctioned
his action by making a formal contract with Mr. Bond, of date Nov. 30,
1839, the agreement on Mr. Bond’s part being to make the transfer as
proposed. Steps were at once taken by the college authorities to secure
a subscription of $100 each from 30 different gentlemen, which sum was
applied, under Mr. Bond’s direction, in alterations and additions to
a dwelling house owned by the college and known as the “Dana house.”
It still stands upon its original site at the junction of Quincy
and Harvard streets, the lot being the southeast corner of what are
distinctively called “the college grounds.”
The cupola which crowns the roof is a reminder and proof of a part
of these alterations: for within it was set up one of the telescopes
of the first college observatory, the cupola when constructed being
suitably domed for the purpose. Something practical in astronomy had
always been taught in the college course. In this way, or possibly
by Mr. Bond himself, the position of Harvard Hall on the college
grounds had been determined. Thus, in a paper published by him in
1833 in the Memoirs of the American Academy, he gives the position of
his observatory in Dorchester as “0°-3′-15″ east of Harvard Hall in
Cambridge.”
That the astronomical equipment possessed by the college before Mr.
Bond’s coming did not amount to the beginning of a proper observatory,
sufficiently appears by a contemporary letter of Prof. Joseph Lovering,
written in response to an official inquiry. He says that the college
had at the time “no instrument of much value for determining either
time or position, and no place more convenient for using instruments
than an open field, or a window which might accidentally open in the
right direction.” He gives the inventory, comprising an astronomical
clock, which, he says, cannot be relied on for accurate time; a small
transit instrument, which at one time was loaned to Dr. Bowditch, but
returned, he having found it of little value; two reflecting telescopes
of three feet and two feet focal length; and a refractor of three
feet focal, which three, he says, “answered decently well for showing
the moon, Jupiter’s satellites, Saturn’s ring, etc., to the students,
but were very imperfect for any nice observation.” These, with an
astronomical quadrant and a common quadrant, complete the list. The
list of instruments brought by Mr. Bond does not appear in the printed
records, but in the paper above referred to he names his instruments
used at Dorchester as a Gregorian reflector of 30 inches focus,
equatorially mounted, an achromatic telescope of 40 inches focus, a
Borda’s circle, a Ramsden’s sextant, and two transit clocks. The clocks
he describes as “excellent,” and says that they had mercurial pendulums.
In the early observations of Mr. Bond at Cambridge, priority was
given to the work begun at Dorchester for the naval department. In
the college record a considerable part of the routine is classed as
meteorology, with reference, chiefly, to the earth’s magnetism. The
scheme of observation in this department was, however, much broadened,
and in this the observatory appears to have performed its first
notable service to pure science and to have assumed a place that gave
it international recognition. For these observations the best known
apparatus was procured and put into service in a building on the
college grounds set at a distance from the Dana house, but connected
therewith by a covered way. It was known as the “Lloyd apparatus.”
It consisted chiefly of three magnetometers, one for indicating
declination, one for horizontal force and the third for vertical force.
It was the product of the same firm in England which had made like
instruments for the British government for use at meteorological
stations at Greenwich, Eng., Toronto, Can., St. Helena, Cape of Good
Hope, Bombay, Madras, Singapore and Van Diemen’s Land. The magnetic
observations at Cambridge were conducted according to the same
formula as that in use at these British stations, with a purpose of
co-operation. In this cosmical investigation the German Meteorological
Association, having many observatories under its direction, and
the Russian government, having magnetic stations at various points
between the borders of China and the Arctic Circle, joined. This Lloyd
apparatus was the gift of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, by
vote of April 22, 1840, and was of the value of $1000.
[Illustration: MAIN OBSERVATORY BUILDING, SHOWING THE DIRECTOR’S
RESIDENCE AND THE GREAT DOME.]
Many interesting particulars of the early days of Harvard College
observatory are given in the first volume of printed annals of the
institution. In the reading an essential fact is to be kept in mind,
the difference of the pecuniary standards of that and the present
time. The writer of an official document of 1843, was, in view of
that difference, neither inexact nor ironical when he characterized a
conditional offer of $5000 for the observatory, made that year by Hon.
David Sears, as “a munificent proposal.” It was soon found that the
Dana house site would serve only temporarily, and on Sept. 4, 1841,
action was taken for the building of a permanent observatory. Soon
afterwards the present observatory grounds, then known as “Summer House
hill,” were bought.
Up to this time astronomical work had been carried on at the Dana
house to the extent possible with the few instruments of precision at
command, much of it by Mr. W. C. Bond, Jr., whose decease, in 1842,
was regarded a loss to science. The contract of the senior Mr. Bond
with the United States government ended in 1842, and in July of that
year a movement was made having in view the purchase of a first-class
telescope, but it was a matter of inquiry as to cost, etc., only. Under
ordinary circumstances what was thus sought for, a proper observatory
building and a telescope equal to the more difficult problems of
astronomy, would have been slowly arrived at.
But early in March, 1843, the great comet of that year suddenly
appeared in the evening sky, near to the sun. It was an astonishing
phenomenon, and wrought the popular as well as the scientific mind into
a state of excitement.
The comet had passed perihelion on Feb. 27, and was seen at one place
in New England on the 28th, close to the sun. During its brightest
period it was visible in the daytime at one place in this section of
the country from 7.30 A.M. to 3 P.M., when clouds intervened; and in
Mexico from 9 A.M. till sunset. It passed but about 90,000 miles from
the sun’s surface and through more than 300,000 miles of the sun’s
corona, its velocity then being 350 miles per second. Its head was
small, but its tail large and brilliant. The total light emitted by the
meteor is stated by Prof. Loomis to have been equal to that of the moon
at midnight in a clear sky. By the telescope its tail could be traced
over a computed distance of 108,000,000 miles, so that had it been
pointed towards the earth it would have passed through the planet’s
atmosphere and 15,000,000 miles beyond.
The professor names as its notable characteristics “its small
perihelion distance, nearly as small as is physically possible, and its
prodigious length of tail.” It continued visible into the following
month. It is known in the books as “the great comet of 1843,” but for
reasons which will appear, it might well be called “the Harvard comet.”
The friends of the young institution at Cambridge perceived that the
moment was opportune for an appeal to the moneyed public. The prevalent
curiosity as to the visitor could not be gratified by the observers at
the Dana house.
They had no instruments fit for the occasion. An altitude-and-azimuth
instrument, which had been used in the state survey of 1831, was
borrowed and mounted in the cupola, and thus, on March 9, an
observation was first made; but nothing came of the endeavor, it
being found impossible to secure permanent adjustments. The next
thing done was to call a meeting of citizens in Boston. The chairman
was Hon. Abbot Lawrence. Addresses were made by Hon. John Pickering,
Prof. Benjamin Peirce, Hon. William Appleton and Hon. S. A. Eliot. A
financial committee was appointed, and subscriptions to the amount of
$25,000 were obtained in Boston, Salem, New Bedford and Nantucket.
Thus encouraged, the official board of the college negotiated for
the purchase of the best telescope that could be produced in Europe,
a refractor of 15 inches aperture, equatorially mounted, the makers
being Merz & Mahler of Munich. The spot for building a massive stone
supporting pier on Summer House hill was fixed Aug. 12, 1843, and
ground was broken for the work on Aug. 15.
These were the experiences which Prof. Benjamin Peirce had in mind when
in later years he spoke in eulogy of Prof. Bond, then deceased, in
phrase which is both of historical and biographical interest. Having
mentioned some of the early difficulties, he said: “When, in 1839, Mr.
Bond was drawn to Cambridge by the strong hand of President Quincy,
when the cause of the observatory was undertaken by the unflinching
and irresistible vigor of our friend J. Ingersoll Bowditch, when
even the heavens came to our assistance, and that wonderful comet
of 1843 excited most opportunely a universal interest in celestial
phenomena,—it was then apparent that the affection for Mr. Bond was the
chief strength of the occasion, and to that we were mainly indebted for
the successful attempt to obtain the unrivalled equatorial and to lay
the foundations of the observatory.” No proper biography of Mr. Bond,
whose career was an honor to his country, has ever been published. A
sketch, the facts for which have largely been derived from original
sources, may fittingly be given as the next number in this series.