The greater the credit due for the achievement of an enterprise
commenced in the early part of the present century, and which would
reflect honor on the science of any country and any age; I mean the
translation and commentary on Laplace's _Mécanique Celeste_, by
Bowditch; a work of whose merit I am myself wholly unable to form
an opinion, but which I suppose places the learned translator and
commentator on a level with the ablest astronomers and geometers of the
day. This work may be considered as opening a new era in the history
of American science. The country was still almost wholly deficient in
instrumental power; but the want was generally felt by men of science,
and the public mind in various parts of the country began to be turned
towards the means of supplying it. In 1825, President John Quincy Adams
brought the subject of a National Observatory before Congress. Political
considerations prevented its being favorably entertained at that
time; and it was not till 1842, and as an incident of the exploring
expedition, that an appropriation was made for a dépôt for the charts
and instruments of the Navy. On this modest basis has been reared the
National Observatory at Washington; an institution which has already
taken and fully sustains an honorable position among the scientific
establishments of the age.
Besides the institution at Washington, fifteen or twenty observatories
have within the last few years, been established in different parts
of the country, some of them on a modest scale, for the gratification
of the scientific taste and zeal of individuals, others on a broad
foundation of expense and usefulness. In these establishments,
public and private, the means are provided for the highest order of
astronomical observation, research, and instruction. There is already
in the country an amount of instrumental power (to which addition
is constantly making), and of mathematical skill on the part of our
men of science, adequate to a manly competition with their European
contemporaries. The fruits are already before the world, in the
triangulation of several of the States, in the great work of the Coast
Survey, in the numerous scientific surveys of the interior of the
Continent, in the astronomical department of the Exploring Expedition,
in the scientific expedition to Chili, in the brilliant hydrographical
labors of the Observatory at Washington, in the published observations
of Washington and Cambridge, in the Journal conducted by the Nestor
of American Science, now in its eighth lustrum; in the _Sidereal
Messenger_, the _Astronomical Journal_, and the _National Ephemeris_;
in the great chronometrical expeditions to determine the longitude of
Cambridge, better ascertained than that of Paris was till within the
last year; in the prompt rectification of the errors in the predicted
elements of Neptune; in its identification with Lalande's missing star,
and in the calculation of its ephemeris; in the discovery of the
satellite of Neptune, of the eighth satellite of Saturn, and of the
innermost of its rings; in the establishment, both by observation and
theory, of the non-solid character of Saturn's rings; in the separation
and measurement of many double and triple stars, amenable only to
superior instrumental power, in the immense labor already performed
in preparing star catalogues, and in numerous accurate observations
of standard stars; in the diligent and successful observation of the
meteoric showers; in an extensive series of magnetic observations; in
the discovery of an asteroid and ten or twelve telescopic comets; in
the resolution of nebulæ which had defied every thing in Europe but
Lord Rosse's great reflector; in the application of electricity to the
measurement of differences in longitude; in the ascertainment of the
velocity of the electro-magnetic fluid, and its truly wonderful uses
in recording astronomical observations. These are but a portion of the
achievements of American astronomical science within fifteen or twenty
years, and fully justify the most sanguine anticipations of its further
progress.
How far our astronomers may be able to pursue their researches, will
depend upon the resources of our public institutions, and the liberality
of wealthy individuals in furnishing the requisite means. With the
exception of the observatories at Washington and West Point, little
can be done, or be expected to be done, by the government of the Union
or the States; but in this, as in every other department of liberal
art and science, the great dependence,--and may I not add, the safe
dependence?--as it ever has been, must continue to be upon the bounty of
enlightened, liberal, and public-spirited individuals.