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 THE USES OF ASTRONOMY. 

 AN ORATION

 Delivered at Albany, on the 28th of July, 1856

 BY

 EDWARD EVERETT, ON THE

 OCCASION OF THE INAUGURATION OF THE DUDLEY ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY, WITH A

 CONDENSED REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS, AND AN ACCOUNT OF THE

 DEDICATION OF NEW YORK STATE GEOLOGICAL HALL. 

 NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY ROSS & TOUSEY, 103 NASSAU STREET. 1856. 

 A NOTE EXPLANATORY. 

 The undersigned ventures to put forth this report of Mr. EVERETT'S Oration, in connection with a condensed account of the Inauguration of the Dudley Observatory, and the Dedication of the New State Geological Hall, at Albany, --in the hope that the demand which has exhausted the newspaper editions, may exhaust this as speedily as possible; not that he is particularly tenacious of a reward for his own slight labors, but because he believes that the extensive circulation of the record of the two events so interesting and important to the cause of Science will exercise a beneficial influence upon the public mind. The effort of the distinguished Statesman who has invested Astronomy with new beauties, is the latest and one of the most brilliant of his compositions, and is already wholly out of print, though scarcely a month has elapsed since the date of its delivery. The account of the proceedings at Albany during the Ceremonies of Inauguration is necessarily brief, but accurate, and is respectfully submitted to the consideration of the reader. 

 A. MAVERICK. NEW YORK, _October 1, 1856. _

 TWO NEW INSTITUTIONS OF SCIENCE;

 AND

 THE SCENES WHICH ATTENDED THEIR CHRISTENING. 

In the month of August last, two events took place in the city ofAlbany, which have more than an ephemeral interest. They occurred inclose connection with the proceedings of a Scientific Convention, and the memory of them deserves to be cherished as a recollection ofthe easy way in which Science may be popularized and be rendered sogenerally acceptable that the people will cry, like Oliver Twist, formore. It is the purpose of this small publication to embody, in a formmore durable than that of the daily newspaper, the record of proceedingswhich have so near a relation to the progress of scientific research. Amarked feature in the ceremonies was the magnificent Oration of the Hon. EDWARD EVERETT, inaugurating the Dudley Observatory of Albany; and it isbelieved that the reissue of that speech in its present form will beacceptable to the admirers of that distinguished gentleman, not lessthan to the lovers of Science, who hung with delight upon his words. 

 THE DEDICATION OF THE GEOLOGICAL HALL. 

On Wednesday, August 27, 1856, the State Geological Hall of New Yorkwas dedicated with appropriate ceremonies. For the purpose of affordingaccommodation to the immense crowds of people who, it was confidentlyanticipated, would throng to this demonstration and that of thesucceeding day, at which Mr. EVERETT spoke, a capacious Tent wasarranged with care in the center of Academy Park, on Capitol Hill;and under its shelter the ceremonies of the inauguration of bothinstitutions were conducted without accident or confusion; attended onthe first day by fully three thousand persons, and on the second by anumber which may be safely computed at from five to seven thousand. 

The announcement that Hon. WM. H. SEWARD would be present at thededication of the Geological Hall, excited great interest among thecitizens; but the hope of his appearance proved fallacious. His placewas occupied by seven picked men of the American Association for theAdvancement of Science, one of whom (Prof. HENRY) declared his inabilityto compute the problem why seven men of science were to be consideredequal to one statesman. The result justified the selections of thecommittee, and although the Senator was not present, the sevenCommoners of Science made the occasion a most notable one by the flowof wit, elegance of phrase, solidity and cogency of argument, and rarediscernment of natural truths, with which their discourse was garnished. 

The members of the American Association marched in procession to theTent, from their place of meeting in the State Capitol. On the stagewere assembled many distinguished gentlemen, and in the audience werehundreds of ladies. GOV. CLARK and Ex-Governors HUNT and SEYMOUR, of NewYork, Sir WM. LOGAN, of Canada, Hon. GEORGE BANCROFT, and others as wellknown as these, were among the number present. The tent was profuselydecorated. Small banners in tri-color were distributed over the entirearea covered by the stage, and adorned the wings. The followinginscriptions were placed over the front of the rostrum, --that in honorof "_The Press_" occupying a central position:

 GEOLOGY. THE PRESS. METEOROLOGY. MINERALOGY. METALLURGY. ETHNOLOGY. ASTRONOMY. 

The following were arranged in various positions on the right and left:

 CHEMISTRY. TELEGRAPH. PHYSIOLOGY. LETTERS. CONCHOLOGY. HYDROLOGY. PALĘONTOLOGY. ZOOLOGY. MICROSCOPY. ICHTHYOLOGY. ART. MANUFACTURES. STEAM. AGRICULTURE. COMMERCE. PHYSICS. SCIENCE. ANATOMY. NAVIGATION. BOTANY. 

The proceedings of the day were opened with prayer by Rev. GEO. W. BETHUNE, D. D. , of Brooklyn. 

Hon. GARRIT Y. LANSING, of Albany, then introduced Professor LOUISAGASSIZ, of Cambridge, Mass. , who was the first of the "seven menof science" to entertain his audience, always with the aid of theinevitable black-board, without which the excellent Professor would beas much at a loss as a chemist without a laboratory. Professor AGASSIZspoke for an hour, giving his views of a new theory of animaldevelopment. He began by saying:--

 We are here to inaugurate the Geological Hall, which has grown out of the geological survey of the State. To make the occasion memorable, a distinguished statesman of your own State, and Mr. FRANK C. GRAY, were expected to be present and address you. The pressure of public duties has detained Mr. SEWARD, and severe sickness has detained Mr. GRAY. I deeply lament that the occasion is lost to you to hear my friend Mr. GRAY, who is a devotee to science, and as warm-hearted a friend as ever I knew. Night before last I was requested to assist in taking their place--I, who am the most unfit of men for the post. I never made a speech. I have addressed learned bodies, but I lack that liberty of speech--the ability to present in finished style, and with that rich imagery which characterize the words of the orator, the thoughts fitting to such an occasion as this. He would limit himself, he continued, to presenting some motives why the community should patronize science, and foster such institutions as this. We scientific men regard this as an occasion of the highest interest, and thus do not hesitate to give the sanction of the highest learned body of the country as an indorsement of the liberality of this State. The geological survey of New York has given to the world a new nomenclature. No geologist can, hereafter, describe the several strata of the earth without referring to it. Its results, as recorded in your published volumes, are treasured in the most valuable libraries of the world. They have made this city famous; and now, when the scientific geologist lands on your shore, his first question is, "Which is the way to Albany? I want to see your fossils. " But Paleontology is only one branch of the subject, and many others your survey has equally fostered. 

 He next proceeded to show that organized beings were organized with reference to a plan, which the relations between different animals, and between different plants, and between animals and plants, everywhere exhibit;--drew sections of the body of a fish, and of the bird, and of man, and pointed out that in each there was the same central back-bone, the cavity above and the ribbed cavity below the flesh on each side, and the skin over all--showing that the maker of each possessed the same thought--followed the same plan of structure. And upon that plan He had made all the kinds of quadrupeds, 2, 000 in number, all the kinds of birds, 7, 000 in number, all of the reptiles, 2, 000 to 3, 000 in number, all the fish, 10, 000 to 12, 000 in number. All their forms may be derived as different expressions of the same formula. There are only four of these great types; or, said he, may I not call them the four tunes on which Divinity has played the harmonies that have peopled, in living and beautiful reality, the whole world?

 PROFESSOR HITCHCOCK ON REMINISCENCES. 

ERASTUS C. BENEDICT, Esq. Of New York, introduced Prof. HITCHCOCK, ofAmherst, as a gentleman whose name was very familiar, who had laidaside, voluntarily, the charge of one of the largest colleges in NewEngland, but who could never lay aside the honors he had earned in theliterature and science of geology. 

After a few introductory observations, Prof. HITCHCOCK said:--

 This, I believe, is the first example in which a State Government in our country has erected a museum for the exhibition of its natural resources, its mineral and rock, its plants and animals, living and fossil. And this seems to me the most appropriate spot in the country for placing the first geological hall erected by the Government; for the County of Albany was the district where the first geological survey was undertaken, on this side of the Atlantic, and, perhaps, the world. This was in 1820, and ordered by that eminent philanthropist, Stephen Van Rensselaer, who, three years later, appointed Prof. Eaton to survey, in like manner, the whole region traversed by the Erie Canal. This was the commencement of a work, which, during the last thirty years, has had a wonderful expansion, reaching a large part of the States of the Union, as well as Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and, I might add, several European countries, where the magnificent surveys now in progress did not commence till after the survey of Albany and Rensselaer Counties. How glad are we, therefore, to find on this spot the first Museum of Economical Geology on this side of the Atlantic! Nay, embracing as it does all the department of Natural History, I see in it more than a European Museum of Economical Geology, splendid though they are. I fancy, rather, that I see here the germ of a Cis-Atlantic British Museum, or Garden of Plants. 

 North Carolina was the first State that ordered a geological survey; and I have the pleasure of seeing before me the gentleman who executed it, and in 1824-5 published a report of 140 pages. I refer to Professor Olmstead, who, though he has since won brighter laurels in another department of science, will always be honored as the first commissioned State geologist in our land. 

Of the New York State Survey he said:--

 This survey has developed the older fossiliferous rocks, with a fullness and distinctness unknown elsewhere. Hence European savans study the New York Reports with eagerness. In 1850, as I entered the Woodwardian Museum, in the University of Cambridge, in England, I found Professor McCoy busy with a collection of Silurian fossils before him, which he was studying with Hall's first volume of Paleontology as his guide; and in the splendid volumes, entitled _British Paleozoric Rocks and Fossils_, which appeared last year as the result of those researches, I find Professor Hall denominated the great American Paleontologist. I tell you, Sir, that this survey has given New York a reputation throughout the learned world, of which she may well be proud. Am I told that it will, probably, cost half a million? Very well. The larger the sum, the higher will be the reputation of New York for liberality; and what other half million expended in our country, has developed so many new facts or thrown so much light upon the history of the globe, or won so world-wide and enviable a reputation?

And of Geological Surveys in general:--

 In regard to this matter of geological surveys, I can hardly avoid making a suggestion here. So large a portion of our country has now been examined, more or less thoroughly, by the several State governments, that it does seem to me the time has come when the National government should order a survey--geological, zoological, and botanical--of the whole country, on such a liberal and thorough plan as the surveys in Great Britain are now conducted; in the latter country it being understood that at least thirty years will be occupied in the work. Could not the distinguished New York statesman who was to have addressed us to-day be induced, when the present great struggle in which he is engaged shall have been brought to a close, by a merciful Providence, to introduce this subject, and urge it upon Congress? And would it not be appropriate for the American Association for the Advancement of Science to throw a petition before the government for such an object? Or might it not, with the consent of the eminent gentleman who has charge of the Coast Survey, be connected therewith, as it is with the Ordnance Survey in Great Britain. 

The history of the American Association was then given:--

 Prof. Mather, I believe, through Prof. Emmons, first suggested to the New-York Board of Geologists in November, 1838, in a letter proposing a number of points for their consideration. I quote from him the following paragraph relating to the meeting. As to the credit he has here given me of having personally suggested the subject, I can say only that I had been in the habit for several years of making this meeting of scientific men a sort of hobby in my correspondence with such. Whether others did the same, I did not then, and do not now know. Were this the proper place, I could go more into detail on this point; but I will merely quote Prof. Mather's language to the Board:--

 * * * * "Would it not be well to suggest the propriety of a meeting of Geologists and other scientific men of our country at some central point next fall, --say at New-York or Philadelphia? There are many questions in our Geology that will receive new light from friendly discussion and the combined observations of various individuals who have noted them in different parts of our country. Such a meeting has been suggested by Prof. Hitchcock; and to me it seems desirable. It would undoubtedly be an advantage not only to science but to the several surveys that are now in progress and that may in future be authorized. It would tend to make known our scientific men to each other personally, give them more confidence in each other, and cause them to concentrate their observation on those questions that are of interest in either a scientific or economical point of view. More questions may be satisfactorily settled in a day by oral discussion in such a body, than a year by writing and publication. "[A]

 [Footnote A: In the letter alluded to, on examination, we discover another passage bearing on the point, which, owing to the Professor's modesty we suspect, he did not read. Prof. Mather adds. "You, so far as I know, first suggested the matter of such an Association. I laid the matter before the Board of Geologists of New-York, specifying some of the advantages that might be expected to result; and Prof. Vanuxem probably made the motion before the Board in regard to it. "]

 Though the Board adopted the plan of a meeting, various causes delayed the first over till April, 1840, when we assembled in Philadelphia, and spent a week in most profitable and pleasant discussion, and the presentation of papers. Our number that year was only 18, because confined almost exclusively to the State geologists; but the next year, when we met again in Philadelphia, and a more extended invitation was given, about eighty were present; and the members have been increasing to the present time. But, in fact, those first two meetings proved the type, in all things essential, of all that have followed. The principal changes have been those of expansion and the consequent introduction of many other branches of science with their eminent cultivators. In 1842, we changed the name to that of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists; and in 1847, to that of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. I trust it has not yet reached its fullest development, as our country and its scientific men multiply, and new fields of discovery open. 

Prof. H. Said of this particular occasion:--

 We may be quite sure that this Hall will be a center of deep interest to coming generations. Long after we shall have passed away will the men of New-York, as they survey these monuments, feel stimulated to engage in other noble enterprises by this work of their progenitors, and from many a distant part of the civilized world will men come here to solve their scientific questions, and to bring far-off regions into comparison with this. New-York, then, by her liberal patronage, has not only acquired an honorable name among those living in all civilized lands, but has secured the voice of History to transmit her fame to far-off generations. 

 SIR WILLIAM LOGAN ASKS "THE WAY TO ALBANY. "

Sir WILLIAM E. LOGAN, of Canada, in a brief speech acknowledged theservices rendered by the New-York Survey to Canada. He should manifestingratitude if he declined to unite in the joyful occasion ofinaugurating the Museum which was to hold forever the evidence of thetruth of its published results. The Survey of Canada had been ordered, and the Commission of five years twice renewed; and the last time, theprovision for it was more than doubled. It happened to him, as Mr. Agassiz had said: after crossing the ocean first, the first thing heasked was, "Which is the way to Albany?" and when he arrived here, hefound that with the aid of Prof. Hall's discoveries, he had only to takeup the different formations as he had left them on the boundary line, and follow them into Canada. It was both a convenience and a necessityto adopt the New-York nomenclature, which was thus extended over an areasix times as large as New-York. In Paris he heard De Vernier using thewords Trenton and Niagara, as if they were household words. He wasdelighted to witness the impatience with which Barron inquired when theremaining volumes of the Paleontology of New-York would be published. Your Paleontological reputation, said he, has made New-York known, even among men not scientific, all over Europe. I hope you will notstop here, but will go on and give us in equally thorough, full, andmagnificent style, the character of the Durassic and Cretaceousformations. 

 PROFESSOR HENRY ON DUTCHMEN. 

Professor HENRY was at a loss to know by what process they had arrivedat the conclusion that seven men of science must be substituted to fillthe place of one distinguished statesman whom they had expected to hear. He prided himself on his Albany nativity. He was proud of the old Dutchcharacter, that was the substratum of the city. The Dutch are hard to bemoved, but when they do start their momentum is not as other men's inproportion to the velocity, but as the square of the velocity. So whenthe Dutchman goes three times as fast, he has nine times the force ofanother man. The Dutchman has an immense potentia agency, but it wants asmall spark of Yankee enterprise to touch it off. In this strain theProfessor continued, making his audience very merry, and giving them afine chance to express themselves with repeated explosions of laughter. 

 PROFESSOR DAVIES ON THE PRACTICAL NATURE OF SCIENCE. 

Prof. CHARLES DAVIES was introduced by EX-GOVERNOR SEYMOUR, and spokebriefly, but humorously and very much to the point, in defense of thepractical character of scientific researches. He said that to oneaccustomed to speak only on the abstract quantities of number and space, this was an unusual occasion, and this an unusual audience; and inquiredhow he could discuss the abstract forms of geometry, when he saw beforehim, in such profusion, the most beautiful real forms that Providencehas vouchsafed to the life of man. He proposed to introduce and developbut a single train of thought--the unchangeable connection between whatin common language is called the theoretical and practical, but in moretechnical phraseology, the ideal and the actual. The actual, or truepractical, consists in the uses of the forces of nature, according tothe laws of nature; and here we must distinguish between it and theempirical, which uses, or attempts to use, those forces, without aknowledge of the laws. The true practical, therefore, is the result, oractual, of an antecedent ideal. The ideal, full and complete, must existin the mind before the actual can be brought forth according to thelaws of science. Who, then, are the truly practical men of our age? Arethey not those who are engaged most laboriously and successfully ininvestigating the great laws? Are they not those who are pressing outthe boundaries of knowledge, and conducting the mind into new andunexplored regions, where there may yet be discovered a California ofundeveloped thought? Is not the gentleman from Massachusetts (ProfessorAgassiz) the most practical man in our country in the department ofNatural History, not because he has collected the greatest number ofspecimens, but because he has laid open to us all the laws of the animalkingdom? Are the formulas written on the black-board by the gentlemanfrom Cambridge (Prof. Pierce) of no practical value, because they cannotbe read by the uninstructed eye? A single line may contain the elementsof the motions of all the heavenly bodies; and the eye of science, taking its stand-point at the center of gravity of the system, willsee in the equation the harmonious revolutions of all the bodies whichcircle the heavens. It is such labors and such generalizations that haverendered his name illustrious in the history of mathematical science. Is it of no practical value that the Chief of the Coast Survey (Prof. Bache), by a few characters written upon paper, at Washington, hasdetermined the exact time of high and low tide in the harbor of Boston, and can determine, by a similar process, the exact times of high and lowwater at every point on the surface of the globe? Are not these results, the highest efforts of science, also of the greatest practical utility?And may we not, then, conclude that _there is nothing truly practicalwhich is not the consequence of an antecedent ideal_?

Science is to art what the great fly-wheel and governor of asteam-engine are to the working part of the machinery--it guides, regulates, and controls the whole. Science and art are inseparablyconnected; like the Siamese Twins, they cannot be separated withoutproducing the death of both. 

How, then, are we to regard the superb specimens of natural history, which the liberality, the munificence; and the wisdom of our State havecollected at the Capitol? They are the elements from which we can heredetermine all that belongs to the Natural History of our State; and maywe not indulge the hope, that science and genius will come here, and, striking them with a magic wand, cause the true practical to spring intoimmortal life?

Remarks were also uttered by Prof. CHESTER DEWEY, President ANDERSON, and Rev. Dr. COX. 

And thus ended the Inauguration of the State Geological Hall. 

We turn to the Observatory, in regular order of succession. 

 INAUGURATION OF DUDLEY OBSERVATORY. 

The Inauguration of the Dudley Observatory took place under the sametent which was appropriated to the dedication of the Geological Hall, and on the day following that event. An immense audience was assembled, drawn by the announcement of Mr. EVERETT'S Oration. 

At a little past three o'clock the procession of _savans_ arrived fromthe Assembly Chamber, escorted by the Burgesses Corps. Directly in frontof the speaker's stand sat Mrs. DUDLEY, the venerable lady to whosemunificence the world is indebted for this Observatory. She was dressedin an antique, olive-colored silk, with a figure of a lighter color, aheavy, red broché shawl, and her bonnet, cap, &c. , after the stricteststyle of the old school. Her presence added a new point of interest. 

Prayer having been uttered by Rev. Dr. SPRAGUE, of Albany, THOMAS W. OLCOTT, Esq. , introduced to the audience Ex-Governor WASHINGTON HUNT, who spoke briefly in honor of the memory of CHARLES E. DUDLEY, whosewidow has founded and in part endowed this Observatory with a liberalityso remarkable. 

Remarks were offered by Dr. B. A. GOULD and Prof. A. D. BACHE, andJudge HARRIS read the following letter from Mrs. DUDLEY, announcinganother munificent donation in aid of the new Observatory--$50, 000, in addition to the $25, 000 which had been already expended in theconstruction of the building. The letter was received with shouts ofapplause, Prof. AGASSIZ rising and leading the vast assemblage in threevehement cheers in honor of Mrs. DUDLEY!

 ALBANY, Thursday, Aug. 14, 1856. 

_To the Trustees of the Dudley Observatory:_

 GENTLEMEN, --I scarcely need refer in a letter to you to the modest beginning and gradual growth of the institution over which you preside, and of which you are the responsible guardians. But we have arrived at a period in its history when its inauguration gives to it and to you some degree of prominence, and which must stamp our past efforts with weakness and inconsideration, or exalt those of the future to the measure of liberality necessary to certain success. 

 You have a building erected and instruments engaged of unrivaled excellence; and it now remains to carry out the suggestion of the Astronomer Royal of England in giving permanency to the establishment. The very distinguished Professors BACHE, PIERCE, and GOULD, state in a letter, which I have been permitted to see, that to expand this institution to the wants of American science and the honors of a national character, will require an investment which will yield annually not less than $10, 000; and these gentlemen say, in the letter referred to, --

 "If the greatness of your giving can rise to this occasion, as it has to all our previous suggestions, with such unflinching magnanimity, we promise you our earnest and hearty coöperation, and stake our reputation that the scientific success shall fill up the measure of your hopes and anticipations. "

 For the attainment of an object so rich in scientific reward and national glory, guaranteed by men with reputations as exalted and enduring as the skies upon which they are written, contributions should be general, and not confined to an individual or a place. 

 For myself, I offer, as my part of the required endowment, the sum of $50, 000 in addition to the advances which I have already made; and, trusting that the name which you have given to the Observatory may not be regarded as an undeserved compliment, and that it will not diminish the public regard by giving to the institution a seemingly individual character, I remain, Gentlemen, your obedient servant, BLANDINA DUDLEY. 

Judge HARRIS then introduced the Orator of the occasion, Hon. EDWARDEVERETT, whose speech is given verbatim in these pages. 

 THE INSTRUMENTS OF THE DUDLEY OBSERVATORY. 

During the Sessions of the American Association, the new AstronomicalInstruments of Dudley Observatory were described in detail by Dr. B. A. GOULD, who is the Astronomer in charge. We condense his statements:--

 The Meridian Circle and Transit instrument were ordered from Pistor & Martins, the celebrated manufacturers of Berlin, by whom the new instrument at Ann Arbor was made. A number of improvements have been introduced in the Albany instruments, not perhaps all absolutely new, but an eclectic combination of late adaptations with new improvements. Dr. Gould made a distinction of modern astronomical instruments into two classes, the English and the German. The English is the massive type; the German, light and airy. The English instrument is the instrument of the engineer; the German, the instrument of the artist. In ordering the instruments for the Albany Observatory, the Doctor preferred the German type and discarded the heavier English. He instanced, as a specimen of the latter, the new instrument at Greenwich, recently erected under the superintendence of the Astronomer Royal. That instrument registers observations in single seconds; the Dudley instrument will register to tenths of seconds. That has six or eight microscopes; this has four. That has a gas lamp, by the light of which the graduations are read off; the Albany instrument has no lamp, and the Doctor considered the lamp a hazardous experiment, affecting the integrity of the experiment, not only by its radiant heat but by the currents of heated air which it produces. The diameter of the object-glass of the Albany instrument is 7-1/2 French inches clear aperture, or 8 English inches, and the length of the tube 8 feet. He would have preferred an instrument in which the facilities of manipulation would have been greater, but was hampered by one proviso, upon which the Trustees of the institution insisted--that this should be the biggest instrument of its kind; and the instruction was obeyed. The glass was made by Chance, and ground by Pistor himself. The eye-piece is fitted with two micrometers, for vertical and horizontal observations. Another apparatus provides for the detection and measurement of the flexure of the tube. Much trouble was experienced in securing a good casting for the steel axis of the instrument. Three were found imperfect under the lathe, and the fourth was chosen; but even then the pivots were made in separate pieces, which were set in very deeply and welded. Dr. Gould said he had been requested by the gentlemen who had this enterprise in charge to suggest, as a mark of respect to a gentleman of Albany who was a munificent patron of Science, that this instrument be known as the Olcott Meridian Circle. 

 WHAT THE DUDLEY OBSERVATORY IS. 

It stands a mile from the Capitol, in the city of Albany, upon the crestof a hill, so difficult of approach, as to be in reality a Hill ofScience. There are two ways of getting to it. In both cases there arerail fences to be clambered over, and long grass to wade through, settlements to explore, and a clayey road to travel; but these are minortroubles. The elevation of the hill above tide-water is, perhaps, 200feet; its distance from the Capitol about a mile and a half. The viewfor miles is unimpeded; and the Observatory is belted about with woodsand verdant lawns. There could not be a finer location or a purer air. The plateau contains some fifteen acres. 

The Observatory is constructed in the form of a Latin cross. Its easternarm is an apartment 22 by 24 feet, in which the meridian circle is to beplaced. The western arm is a room of the same dimensions, intended forthe transit instrument. From the north and south faces of both roomsare semi-circular apsides, projecting 6 feet 6 inches, containing theCollimator piers and the vertical openings for observation. The entirelength of each room is, therefore, 37 feet. In the northern arm areplaced the library, 23 feet by 27 feet; two computing rooms, 12 feetby 23 feet each; side entrance halls, staircases, &c. The southern armcontains the principal entrance, consisting of an arched colonnade offour Tuscan columns, surrounded by a pediment. A broad flight of stonesteps leads to this colonnade; and through the entrance door beneathit to the main central hall, 28 feet square, in which are placed (inniches) the very beautiful electric clock and pendulum presented byErastus Corning, Esq. The center of this hall is occupied by a massivepier of stone, 10 feet square, passing from the basement into the domeabove, and intended for the support of the great heliometer. Directlyopposite the entrance door is a large niche, in which it is proposed toplace the bust of the late Mr. Dudley. Immediately above this hall isthe equatorial room, a circular apartment, 22 feet 6 inches in diameter, and 24 feet high, covered by a low conical roof, in which and in thewalls are the usual observing slits. The drum, or cylindrical portion, of this room is divided into two parts--the lower one fixed, the upper, revolving on cast-iron balls moving in grooved metal plates, can commandthe entire horizon. 

The building is in two stories--the upper of brick, with freestonequoins, impost and window and door dressings, rests upon a rusticatedbasement of freestone, six feet high. The style adopted is the modernItalian, of which it is a very excellent specimen. The building has beencompleted some time; but, in consequence of the size of the instrumentsnow procured being greater than that originally contemplated, sundryalterations were required in the Transit and Meridian Circle rooms. These consist of the semi-circular projections already mentioned, andwhich, by varying the outlines of the building, will add greatly to itsbeauty and picturesqueness. 

The piers for the Meridian Circle and Transit have, after carefulinvestigation, been procured from the Lockport quarries. The greatdensity and uniformity of the structure of the stone, and the facilitywith which such large masses as are required for this purpose can beprocured there, have induced the selection of these quarries. The stoneswill weigh from six and a half to eight tons each. 

The main building was erected from the drawings of Messrs. Woollett andOgden, Architects, Albany; the additions and the machinery have beendesigned by Mr. W. Hodgins, Civil Engineer; and the latter is now beingconstructed under his superintendence, in a very superior manner, at theiron works of Messrs. Pruyn and Lansing, Albany. 

The entire building is a tasteful and elegant structure, much superiorin architectural character to any other in America devoted to a similarpurpose. 

 ORATION. 

FELLOW CITIZENS OF ALBANY:--

Assembled as we are, under your auspices, in this ancient and hospitablecity, for an object indicative of a highly-advanced stage of scientificculture, it is natural, in the first place, to cast a historical glanceat the past. It seems almost to surpass belief, though an unquestionedfact, that more than a century should have passed away, after Cabot haddiscovered the coast of North America for England, before any knowledgewas gained of the noble river on which your city stands, and which wasdestined by Providence to determine, in after times, the position of thecommercial metropolis of the Continent. It is true that Verazzano, abold and sagacious Florentine navigator, in the service of France, hadentered the Narrows in 1524, which he describes as a very large river, deep at its mouth, which forced its way through steep hills to the sea;but though he, like all the naval adventurers of that age, was sailingwestward in search of a shorter passage to India, he left this partof the coast without any attempt to ascend the river; nor can it begathered from his narrative that he believed it to penetrate far intothe interior. 

 VOYAGE OF HENDRICK HUDSON. 

Near a hundred years elapsed before that great thought acquiredsubstance and form. In the spring of 1609, the heroic but unfortunateHudson, one of the brightest names in the history of English maritimeadventure, but then in the employment of the Dutch East India Company, in a vessel of eighty tons, bearing the very astronomical name of the_Half Moon_, having been stopped by the ice in the Polar Sea, in theattempt to reach the East by the way of Nova Zembla, struck over to thecoast of America in a high northern latitude. He then stretched downsouthwardly to the entrance of Chesapeake Bay (of which he had gaineda knowledge from the charts and descriptions of his friend, CaptainSmith), thence returning to the north, entered Delaware Bay, standingout again to sea, arrived on the second of September in sight of the"high hills" of Neversink, pronouncing it "a good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see;" and, on the following morning, sending hisboat before him to sound the way, passed Sandy Hook, and there came toanchor on the third of September, 1609; two hundred and forty-sevenyears ago next Wednesday. What an event, my friends, in the history ofAmerican population, enterprise, commerce, intelligence, and power--thedropping of that anchor at Sandy Hook!

 DISCOVERY OF THE HUDSON RIVER. 

Here he lingered a week, in friendly intercourse with the natives of NewJersey, while a boat's company explored the waters up to Newark Bay. Andnow the great question. Shall he turn back, like Verazzano, or ascendthe stream? Hudson was of a race not prone to turn back, by sea or byland. On the eleventh of September he raised the anchor of the _HalfMoon_, passed through the Narrows, beholding on both sides "as beautifula land as one can tread on;" and floated cautiously and slowly up thenoble stream--the first ship that ever rested on its bosom. He passedthe Palisades, nature's dark basaltic Malakoff, forced the iron gatewayof the Highlands, anchored, on the fourteenth, near West Point; sweptonward and upward, the following day, by grassy meadows and tangledslopes, hereafter to be covered with smiling villages;--by elevatedbanks and woody heights, the destined site of towns and cities--ofNewburg, Poughkeepsie, Catskill;--on the evening of the fifteentharrived opposite "the mountains which lie from the river side, " wherehe found "a very loving people and very old men;" and the day followingsailed by the spot hereafter to be honored by his own illustrious name. One more day wafts him up between Schodac and Castleton; and here helanded and passed a day with the natives, --greeted with all sorts ofbarbarous hospitality, --the land "the finest for cultivation he ever setfoot on, " the natives so kind and gentle, that when they found he wouldnot remain with them over night, and feared that he left them--poorchildren of nature!--because he was afraid of their weapons, --he, whosequarter-deck was heavy with ordnance, --they "broke their arrows inpieces, and threw them in the fire. " On the following morning, withthe early flood-tide, on the 19th of September, 1609, the _Half Moon_"ran higher up, two leagues above the Shoals, " and came to anchor indeep water, near the site of the present city of Albany. Happy if hecould have closed his gallant career on the banks of the stream whichso justly bears his name, and thus have escaped the sorrowful andmysterious catastrophe which awaited him the next year!

 CHAMPLAIN'S VOYAGE AND THE GROWTH OF COLONIES. 

But the discovery of your great river and of the site of your ancientcity, is not the only event which renders the year 1609 memorable in theannals of America and the world. It was one of those years in which asort of sympathetic movement toward great results unconsciously pervadesthe races and the minds of men. While Hudson discovered this mightyriver and this vast region for the Dutch East India Company, Champlain, in the same year, carried the lilies of France to the beautifullake which bears his name on your northern limits; the languishingestablishments of England in Virginia were strengthened by the secondcharter granted to that colony; the little church of Robinson removedfrom Amsterdam to Leyden, from which, in a few years, they went forth, to lay the foundations of New England on Plymouth Rock; the seven UnitedProvinces of the Netherlands, after that terrific struggle of fortyyears (the commencement of which has just been embalmed in a recordworthy of the great event by an American historian) wrested from Spainthe virtual acknowledgment of their independence, in the Twelve Years'Truce; and James the First, in the same year, granted to the BritishEast India Company their first permanent charter, --corner-stone of anempire destined in two centuries to overshadow the East. 

 GALILEO'S DISCOVERIES

One more incident is wanting to complete the list of the memorableoccurrences which signalize the year 1609, and one most worthy to beremembered by us on this occasion. Cotemporaneously with the eventswhich I have enumerated--eras of history, dates of empire, thestarting-point in some of the greatest political, social, and moralrevolutions in our annals, an Italian astronomer, who had heard of themagnifying glasses which had been made in Holland, by which distantobjects could be brought seemingly near, caught at the idea, constructeda telescope, and pointed it to the heavens. Yes, my friends, in the sameyear in which Hudson discovered your river and the site of your ancienttown, in which Robinson made his melancholy hegira from Amsterdam toLeyden, Galileo Galilei, with a telescope, the work of his own hands, discovered the phases of Venus and the satellites of Jupiter; and now, after the lapse of less than two centuries and a half, on a spot thenembosomed in the wilderness--the covert of the least civilized of allthe races of men--we are assembled--descendants of the Hollanders, descendants of the Pilgrims, in this ancient and prosperous city, toinaugurate the establishment of a first-class Astronomical Observatory. 

 EARLY DAYS OF ALBANY. 

One more glance at your early history. Three years after the landing ofthe Pilgrims at Plymouth, Fort Orange was erected, in the center of whatis now the business part of the city of Albany; and, a few years later, the little hamlet of Beverswyck began to nestle under its walls. Twocenturies ago, my Albanian friends, this very year, and I believe thisvery month of August, your forefathers assembled, not to inaugurate anobservatory, but to lay the foundations of a new church, in the place ofthe rude cabin which had hitherto served them in that capacity. It wasbuilt at the intersection of Yonker's and Handelaar's, better knownto you as State and Market streets. Public and private liberalitycoöperated in the important work. The authorities at the Fort gavefifteen hundred guilders; the patroon of that early day, with theliberality coėval with the name and the race, contributed a thousand;while the inhabitants, for whose benefit it was erected, whose numberswere small and their resources smaller, contributed twenty beavers "forthe purchase of an oaken pulpit in Holland. " Whether the largest part ofthis subscription was bestowed by some liberal benefactress, traditionhas not informed us. 

 NEW AMSTERDAM

Nor is the year 1656 memorable in the annals of Albany alone. Inthat same year your imperial metropolis, then numbering about threehundred inhabitants, was first laid out as a city, by the name of NewAmsterdam. [A] In eight years more, New Netherland becomes New York; FortOrange and its dependent hamlet assumes the name of Albany. A centuryof various fortune succeeds; the scourge of French and Indian war israrely absent from the land; every shock of European policy vibrateswith electric rapidity across the Atlantic; but the year 1756 findsa population of 300, 000 in your growing province. Albany, however, may still be regarded almost as a frontier settlement. Of the twelvecounties into which the province was divided a hundred years ago, thecounty of Albany comprehended all that lay north and west of the city;and the city itself contained but about three hundred and fifty houses. 

[Footnote A: These historical notices are, for the most part, abridgedfrom Mr. Brodhead's excellent history of New York. ]

 TWO HUNDRED YEARS. 

One more century; another act in the great drama of empire; anotherFrench and Indian War beneath the banners of England; a successfulRevolution, of which some of the most momentous events occurred withinyour limits; a union of States; a Constitution of Federal Government;your population carried to the St. Lawrence and the great Lakes, andtheir waters poured into the Hudson; your territory covered with anet-work of canals and railroads, filled with life and action, andpower, with all the works of peaceful art and prosperous enterprise withall the institutions which constitute and advance the civilization ofthe age; its population exceeding that of the Union at the date of theRevolution; your own numbers twice as large as those of the largest cityof that day, you have met together, my Friends, just two hundred yearssince the erection of the little church of Beverswyck, to dedicate anoble temple of science and to take a becoming public notice of theestablishment of an institution, destined, as we trust, to exert abeneficial influence on the progress of useful knowledge at home andabroad, and through that on the general cause of civilization. 

 SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS. 

You will observe that I am careful to say the progress of science "athome and abroad;" for the study of Astronomy in this country has longsince, I am happy to add, passed that point where it is content torepeat the observations and verify the results of European research. Ithas boldly and successfully entered the field of original investigation, discovery, and speculation; and there is not now a single department ofthe science in which the names of American observers and mathematiciansare not cited by our brethren across the water, side by side with themost eminent of their European contemporaries. 

This state of things is certainly recent. During the colonial periodand in the first generation after the Revolution, no department ofscience was, for obvious causes, very extensively cultivated inAmerica--astronomy perhaps as much as the kindred branches. Theimprovement in the quadrant, commonly known as Hadley's, had alreadybeen made at Philadelphia by Godfrey, in the early part of the lastcentury; and the beautiful invention of the collimating telescope wasmade at a later period by Rittenhouse, an astronomer of distinguishedrepute. The transits of Venus of 1761 and 1769 were observed, andorreries were constructed in different parts of the country; and somerespectable scientific essays are contained and valuable observationsare recorded in the early volumes of the Transactions of thePhilosophical Society, at Philadelphia, and the American Academy of Artsand Sciences at Boston and Cambridge. But in the absence of a numerousclass of men of science to encourage and aid each other, withoutobservatories and without valuable instruments, little of importancecould be expected in the higher walks of astronomical life. 

 AMERICAN OBSERVATIONS. 

The greater the credit due for the achievement of an enterprisecommenced in the early part of the present century, and which wouldreflect honor on the science of any country and any age; I mean thetranslation and commentary on Laplace's _Mécanique Celeste_, byBowditch; a work of whose merit I am myself wholly unable to forman opinion, but which I suppose places the learned translator andcommentator on a level with the ablest astronomers and geometers of theday. This work may be considered as opening a new era in the historyof American science. The country was still almost wholly deficient ininstrumental power; but the want was generally felt by men of science, and the public mind in various parts of the country began to be turnedtowards the means of supplying it. In 1825, President John Quincy Adamsbrought the subject of a National Observatory before Congress. Politicalconsiderations prevented its being favorably entertained at thattime; and it was not till 1842, and as an incident of the exploringexpedition, that an appropriation was made for a dépōt for the chartsand instruments of the Navy. On this modest basis has been reared theNational Observatory at Washington; an institution which has alreadytaken and fully sustains an honorable position among the scientificestablishments of the age. 

Besides the institution at Washington, fifteen or twenty observatorieshave within the last few years, been established in different partsof the country, some of them on a modest scale, for the gratificationof the scientific taste and zeal of individuals, others on a broadfoundation of expense and usefulness. In these establishments, public and private, the means are provided for the highest order ofastronomical observation, research, and instruction. There is alreadyin the country an amount of instrumental power (to which additionis constantly making), and of mathematical skill on the part of ourmen of science, adequate to a manly competition with their Europeancontemporaries. The fruits are already before the world, in thetriangulation of several of the States, in the great work of the CoastSurvey, in the numerous scientific surveys of the interior of theContinent, in the astronomical department of the Exploring Expedition, in the scientific expedition to Chili, in the brilliant hydrographicallabors of the Observatory at Washington, in the published observationsof Washington and Cambridge, in the Journal conducted by the Nestorof American Science, now in its eighth lustrum; in the _SiderealMessenger_, the _Astronomical Journal_, and the _National Ephemeris_;in the great chronometrical expeditions to determine the longitude ofCambridge, better ascertained than that of Paris was till within thelast year; in the prompt rectification of the errors in the predictedelements of Neptune; in its identification with Lalande's missing star, and in the calculation of its ephemeris; in the discovery of thesatellite of Neptune, of the eighth satellite of Saturn, and of theinnermost of its rings; in the establishment, both by observation andtheory, of the non-solid character of Saturn's rings; in the separationand measurement of many double and triple stars, amenable only tosuperior instrumental power, in the immense labor already performedin preparing star catalogues, and in numerous accurate observationsof standard stars; in the diligent and successful observation of themeteoric showers; in an extensive series of magnetic observations; inthe discovery of an asteroid and ten or twelve telescopic comets; inthe resolution of nebulę which had defied every thing in Europe butLord Rosse's great reflector; in the application of electricity to themeasurement of differences in longitude; in the ascertainment of thevelocity of the electro-magnetic fluid, and its truly wonderful usesin recording astronomical observations. These are but a portion of theachievements of American astronomical science within fifteen or twentyyears, and fully justify the most sanguine anticipations of its furtherprogress. 

How far our astronomers may be able to pursue their researches, willdepend upon the resources of our public institutions, and the liberalityof wealthy individuals in furnishing the requisite means. With theexception of the observatories at Washington and West Point, littlecan be done, or be expected to be done, by the government of the Unionor the States; but in this, as in every other department of liberalart and science, the great dependence, --and may I not add, the safedependence?--as it ever has been, must continue to be upon the bounty ofenlightened, liberal, and public-spirited individuals. 

 THE DUDLEY OBSERVATORY. 

It is by a signal exercise of this bounty, my Friends, that we arecalled together to-day. The munificence of several citizens of thisancient city, among whom the first place is due to the generous ladywhose name has with great propriety been given to the institution, hasfurnished the means for the foundation of the Dudley Observatory atAlbany. On a commanding elevation on the northern edge of the city, liberally given for that purpose by the head of a family in which thepatronage of science is hereditary, a building of ample dimensions hasbeen erected, upon a plan which combines all the requisites of solidity, convenience, and taste. A large portion of the expense of the structurehas been defrayed by Mrs. Blandina Dudley; to whose generosity, and thatof several other public-spirited individuals, the institution is alsoindebted for the provision which has been made for an adequate supply offirst-class instruments, to be executed by the most eminent makers inEurope and America; and which, it is confidently expected, will yield tonone of their class in any observatory in the world. [A]

[Footnote A: Prof. Loomis, in _Harper's Magazine_ for June, p. 49. ]

With a liberal supply of instrumental power; established in a communityto whose intelligence and generosity its support may be safely confided, and whose educational institutions are rapidly realizing the conceptionof a university; countenanced by the gentleman who conducts the UnitedStates Coast Survey with such scientific skill and administrativeenergy; committed to the immediate supervision of an astronomer towhose distinguished talent had been added the advantage of a thoroughscientific education in the most renowned universities of Europe, andwho, as the editor of the _American Astronomical Journal_, has shownhimself to be fully qualified for the high trust;--under these favorablecircumstances, the Dudley Observatory at Albany takes its place amongthe scientific foundations of the country and the world. 

 WONDERS OF ASTRONOMY. 

It is no affected modesty which leads me to express the regret that thisinteresting occasion could not have taken place under somewhat differentauspices. I feel that the duty of addressing this great and enlightenedassembly, comprising so much of the intelligence of the community and ofthe science of the country, ought to have been elsewhere assigned; thatit should have devolved upon some one of the eminent persons, many ofwhom I see before me, to whom you have been listening the past week, who, as observers and geometers, could have treated the subject with amaster's power; astronomers, whose telescopes have penetrated the depthsof the heavens, or mathematicians, whose analysis unthreads the mazeof their wondrous mechanism. If, instead of commanding, as you easilycould have done, qualifications of this kind, your choice has ratherfallen on one making no pretensions to the honorable name of a man ofscience, --but whose delight it has always been to turn aside from thedusty paths of active life, for an interval of recreation in the greenfields of sacred nature in all her kingdoms, --it is, I presume, becauseyou have desired on an occasion of this kind, necessarily of a popularcharacter, that those views of the subject should be presented whichaddress themselves to the general intelligence of the community, andnot to its select scientific circles. There is, perhaps, no branch ofscience which to the same extent as astronomy exhibits phenomena which, while they task the highest powers of philosophical research, are alsowell adapted to arrest the attention of minds barely tinctured withscientific culture, and even to teach the sensibilities of the whollyuninstructed observer. The profound investigations of the chemist intothe ultimate constitution of material nature, the minute researches ofthe physiologist into the secrets of animal life, the transcendentallogic of the geometer, clothed in a notation, the very sight of whichterrifies the uninitiated, --are lost on the common understanding. Butthe unspeakable glories of the rising and the setting sun; the serenemajesty of the moon, as she walks in full-orbed brightness through theheavens; the soft witchery of the morning and the evening star; theimperial splendors of the firmament on a bright, unclouded night; thecomet, whose streaming banner floats over half the sky, --these areobjects which charm and astonish alike the philosopher and the peasant, the mathematician who weighs the masses and defines the orbits of theheavenly bodies, and the untutored observer who sees nothing beyond theimages painted upon the eye. 

 WHAT IS AN ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY?

An astronomical observatory, in the general acceptation of the word, isa building erected for the reception and appropriate use of astronomicalinstruments, and the accommodation of the men of science employedin making and reducing observations of the heavenly bodies. Theseinstruments are mainly of three classes, to which I believe all othersof a strictly astronomical character may be referred. 

1. The instruments by which the heavens are inspected, with a view todiscover the existence of those celestial bodies which are not visibleto the naked eye (beyond all comparison more numerous than those whichare), and the magnitude, shapes, and other sensible qualities, both ofthose which are and those which are not thus visible to the unaidedsight. The instruments of this class are designated by the general nameof Telescope, and are of two kinds, --the refracting telescope, whichderives its magnifying power from a system of convex lenses; and thereflecting telescope, which receives the image of the heavenly body upona concave mirror. 

2d. The second class of instruments consists of those which are designedprincipally to measure the angular distances of the heavenly bodiesfrom each other, and their time of passing the meridian. The transitinstrument, the meridian circle, the mural circle, the heliometer, and the sextant, belong to this class. The brilliant discoveriesof astronomy are, for the most part, made with the first class ofinstruments; its practical results wrought out by the second. 

3d. The third class contains the clock, with its subsidiary apparatus, for measuring the time and making its subdivisions with the greatestpossible accuracy; indispensable auxiliary of all the instruments, bywhich the positions and motions of the heavenly bodies are observed, andmeasured, and recorded. 

 THE TELESCOPE. 

The telescope may be likened to a wondrous cyclopean eye, endued withsuperhuman power, by which the astronomer extends the reach of hisvision to the further heavens, and surveys galaxies and universescompared with which the solar system is but an atom floating in the air. The transit may be compared to the measuring rod which he lays fromplanet to planet, and from star to star, to ascertain and mark off theheavenly spaces, and transfer them to his note-book; the clock is thatmarvelous apparatus by which he equalizes and divides into nicelymeasured parts a portion of that unconceived infinity of duration, without beginning and without end, in which all existence floats as on ashoreless and bottomless sea. 

In the contrivance and the execution of these instruments, the utmoststretch of inventive skill and mechanical ingenuity has been put forth. To such perfection have they been carried, that a single second ofmagnitude or space is rendered a distinctly visible and appreciablequantity. "The arc of a circle, " says Sir J. Herschell, "subtended byone second, is less than the 200, 000th part of the radius, so that on acircle of six feet in diameter, it would occupy no greater linear extentthan 1-5700 part of an inch, a quantity requiring a powerful microscopeto be discerned at all. "[A] The largest body in our system, the sun, whose real diameter is 882, 000 miles, subtends, at a distance of95, 000, 000 miles, but an angle of little more than 32; while soadmirably are the best instruments constructed, that both in Europeand America a satellite of Neptune, an object of comparativelyinconsiderable diameter, has been discovered at a distance of 2, 850millions of miles. 

[Footnote A: _Outlines_, § 131. ]

 UTILITY OF ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS. 

The object of an observatory, erected and supplied with instruments ofthis admirable construction, and at proportionate expense, is, as I havealready intimated, to provide for an accurate and systematic surveyof the heavenly bodies, with a view to a more correct and extensiveacquaintance with those already known, and as instrumental powerand skill in using it increase, to the discovery of bodies hithertoinvisible, and in both classes to the determination of their distances, their relations to each other, and the laws which govern theirmovements. 

Why should we wish to obtain this knowledge? What inducement is thereto expend large sums of money in the erection of observatories, and infurnishing them with costly instruments, and in the support of the menof science employed in making, discussing, and recording, for successivegenerations, those minute observations of the heavenly bodies?

In an exclusively scientific treatment of this subject, an inquiryinto its utilitarian relations would be superfluous--even wearisome. But on an occasion like the present, you will not, perhaps, think itout of place if I briefly answer the question, What is the use of anobservatory, and what benefit may be expected from the operations ofsuch an establishment in a community like ours?

1. In the first place, then, we derive from the observations of theheavenly bodies which are made at an observatory, our only adequatemeasures of time, and our only means of comparing the time of oneplace with the time of another. Our artificial time-keepers--clocks, watches, and chronometers--however ingeniously contrived and admirablyfabricated, are but a transcript, so to say, of the celestial motions, and would be of no value without the means of regulating them byobservation. It is impossible for them, under any circumstances, toescape the imperfection of all machinery the work of human hands; andthe moment we remove with our time-keeper east or west, it fails us. Itwill keep home time alone, like the fond traveler who leaves his heartbehind him. The artificial instrument is of incalculable utility, butmust itself be regulated by the eternal clock-work of the skies. 

 RELATIONS BETWEEN NATURAL PHENOMENA AND DAILY LIFE. 

This single consideration is sufficient to show how completely the dailybusiness of life is affected and controlled by the heavenly bodies. It is they--and not our main-springs, our expansion balances, and ourcompensation pendulums--which give us our time. To reverse the line ofPope:

 "'Tis with our watches as our judgments;--none Go just alike, but each believes his own. "

But for all the kindreds and tribes and tongues of men--each upon theirown meridian--from the Arctic pole to the equator, from the equator tothe Antarctic pole, the eternal sun strikes twelve at noon, and theglorious constellations, far up in the everlasting belfries of theskies, chime twelve at midnight;--twelve for the pale student over hisflickering lamp; twelve amid the flaming glories of Orion's belt, if hecrosses the meridian at that fated hour; twelve by the weary couch oflanguishing humanity; twelve in the star-paved courts of the Empyrean;twelve for the heaving tides of the ocean; twelve for the weary arm oflabor; twelve for the toiling brain; twelve for the watching, waking, broken heart; twelve for the meteor which blazes for a moment andexpires; twelve for the comet whose period is measured by centuries;twelve for every substantial, for every imaginary thing, which exists inthe sense, the intellect, or the fancy, and which the speech or thoughtof man, at the given meridian, refers to the lapse of time. 

Not only do we resort to the observation of the heavenly bodies for themeans of regulating and rectifying our clocks, but the great divisionsof day and month and year are derived from the same source. By theconstitution of our nature, the elements of our existence are closelyconnected with celestial times. Partly by his physical organization, partly by the experience of the race from the dawn of creation, man ashe is, and the times and seasons of the heavenly bodies, are part andparcel of one system. The first great division of time, the day-night(nychthemerum), for which we have no precise synonym in our language, with its primal alternation of waking and sleeping, of labor and rest, is a vital condition of the existence of such a creature as man. Therevolution of the year, with its various incidents of summer and winter, and seed-time and harvest, is not less involved in our social, material, and moral progress. It is true that at the poles, and on the equator, the effects of these revolutions are variously modified or whollydisappear; but as the necessary consequence, human life is extinguishedat the poles, and on the equator attains only a languid or feverishdevelopment. Those latitudes only in which the great motions andcardinal positions of the earth exert a mean influence, exhibit man inthe harmonious expansion of his powers. The lunar period, which liesat the foundation of the _month_, is less vitally connected with humanexistence and development; but is proved by the experience of every ageand race to be eminently conducive to the progress of civilization andculture. 

But indispensable as are these heavenly measures of time to our life andprogress, and obvious as are the phenomena on which they rest, yet owingto the circumstance that, in the economy of nature, the day, the month, and the year are not exactly commensurable, some of the most difficultquestions in practical astronomy are those by which an accurate divisionof time, applicable to the various uses of life, is derived from theobservation of the heavenly bodies. I have no doubt that, to the SupremeIntelligence which created and rules the universe, there is a harmonyhidden to us in the numerical relation to each other of days, months, and years; but in our ignorance of that harmony, their practicaladjustment to each other is a work of difficulty. The greatembarrassment which attended the reformation of the calendar, after theerror of the Julian period had, in the lapse of centuries, reached ten(or rather twelve) days, sufficiently illustrates this remark. It ismost true that scientific difficulties did not form the chief obstacle. Having been proposed under the auspices of the Roman pontiff, theProtestant world, for a century and more, rejected the new style. It was in various places the subject of controversy, collision, andbloodshed. [A] It was not adopted in England till nearly two centuriesafter its introduction at Rome; and in the country of Struve and thePulkova equatorial, they persist at the present day in adding elevenminutes and twelve seconds to the length of the tropical year. 

[Footnote A: Stern's "_Himmelskunde_, " p. 72. ]

 GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE. 

2. The second great practical use of an Astronomical Observatory isconnected with the science of geography. The first page of the historyof our Continent declares this truth. Profound meditation on thesphericity of the earth was one of the main reasons which led Columbusto undertake his momentous voyage; and his thorough acquaintance withthe astronomical science of that day was, in his own judgment, whatenabled him to overcome the almost innumerable obstacles which attendedits prosecution. [A] In return, I find that Copernicus in the verycommencement of his immortal work _De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium_, fol. 2, appeals to the discovery of America as completing thedemonstration of the sphericity of the earth. Much of our knowledge ofthe figure, size, density, and position of the earth, as a member ofthe solar system, is derived from this science; and it furnishes usthe means of performing the most important operations of practicalgeography. Latitude and longitude, which lie at the basis of alldescriptive geography, are determined by observation. No map deservesthe name, on which the position of important points has not beenastronomically determined. Some even of our most important political andadministrative arrangements depend upon the coöperation of this science. Among these I may mention the land system of the United States, and thedetermination of the boundaries of the country. I believe that till itwas done by the Federal Government, a uniform system of mathematicalsurvey had never in any country been applied to an extensive territory. Large grants and sales of public land took place before the Revolution, and in the interval between the peace and the adoption of theConstitution; but the limits of these grants and sales were ascertainedby sensible objects, by trees, streams, rocks, hills, and by referenceto adjacent portions of territory, previously surveyed. The uncertaintyof boundaries thus defined, was a never-failing source of litigation. Large tracts of land in the Western country, granted by Virginiaunder this old system of special and local survey, were covered withconflicting claims; and the controversies to which they gave riseformed no small part of the business of the Federal Court after itsorganization. But the adoption of the present land-system brought orderout of chaos. The entire public domain is now scientifically surveyedbefore it is offered for sale; it is laid off into ranges, townships, sections, and smaller divisions, with unerring accuracy, resting on thefoundation of base and meridian lines; and I have been informed thatunder this system, scarce a case of contested location and boundary hasever presented itself in court. The General Land Office contains mapsand plans, in which every quarter-section of the public land is laiddown with mathematical precision. The superficies of half a continent isthus transferred in miniature to the bureaus of Washington; while thelocal Land Offices contain transcripts of these plans, copies of whichare furnished to the individual purchaser. When we consider the tide ofpopulation annually flowing into the public domain, and the immenseimportance of its efficient and economical administration, the utilityof this application of Astronomy will be duly estimated. 

[Footnote A: Humboldt, _Histotre de la Geographie_, &c. , Tom. 1, page 71. ]

I will here venture to repeat an anecdote, which I heard lately froma son of the late Hon. Timothy Pickering. Mr. Octavius Pickering, onbehalf of his father, had applied to Mr. David Putnam of Marietta, toact as his legal adviser, with respect to certain land claims in theVirginia Military district, in the State of Ohio. Mr. Putnam declinedthe agency. He had had much to do with business of that kind, and foundit beset with endless litigation. "I have never, " he added, "succeededbut in a single case, and that was a location and survey made by GeneralWashington before the Revolution; and I am not acquainted with anysurveys, except those made by him, but what have been litigated. "

At this moment, a most important survey of the coast of the UnitedStates is in progress, an operation of the utmost consequence, inreference to the commerce, navigation, and hydrography of the country. The entire work, I need scarce say, is one of practical astronomy. Thescientific establishment which we this day inaugurate is looked to forimportant coöperation in this great undertaking, and will no doubtcontribute efficiently to its prosecution. 

Astronomical observation furnishes by far the best means of defining theboundaries of States, especially when the lines are of great length andrun through unsettled countries. Natural indications, like rivers andmountains, however indistinct in appearance, are in practice subject tounavoidable error. By the treaty of 1783, a boundary was establishedbetween the United States and Great Britain, depending chiefly on thecourse of rivers and highlands dividing the waters which flow into theAtlantic Ocean from those which flow into the St. Lawrence. It tooktwenty years to find out which river was the true St. Croix, that beingthe starting point. England then having made the extraordinary discoverythat the Bay of Fundy is not a part of the Atlantic Ocean, forty yearsmore were passed in the unsuccessful attempt to re-create the highlandswhich this strange theory had annihilated; and just as the two countrieswere on the verge of a war, the controversy was settled by compromise. Had the boundary been accurately described by lines of latitude andlongitude, no dispute could have arisen. No dispute arose as to theboundary between the United States and Spain, and her successor, Mexico, where it runs through untrodden deserts and over pathless mountainsalong the 42d degree of latitude. The identity of rivers may bedisputed, as in the case of the St. Croix; the course of mountain chainsis too broad for a dividing line; the division of streams, as experiencehas shown, is uncertain; but a degree of latitude is written on theheavenly sphere, and nothing but an observation is required to read therecord. 

 QUESTIONS OF BOUNDARY. 

But scientific elements, like sharp instruments, must be handled withscientific accuracy. A part of our boundary between the BritishProvinces ran upon the forty-fifth degree of latitude; and about fortyyears ago, an expensive fortress was commenced by the government of theUnited States, at Rouse's Point, on Lake Champlain, on a spot intendedto be just within our limits. When a line came to be more carefullysurveyed, the fortress turned out to be on the wrong side of the line;we had been building an expensive fortification for our neighbor. But inthe general compromises of the Treaty of Washington by the Webster andAshburton Treaty in 1842, the fortification was left within ourlimits. [A]

[Footnote A: Webster's Works. Vol. V. , 110, 115. ]

Errors still more serious had nearly resulted, a few years since, ina war with Mexico. By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in 1848, theboundary line between the United States and that country was in partdescribed by reference to the town of El Paso, as laid down on aspecified map of the United States, of which a copy was appended to thetreaty. This boundary was to be surveyed and run by a joint commissionof men of science. It soon appeared that errors of two or three degreesexisted in the projection of the map. Its lines of latitude andlongitude did not conform to the topography of the region; so that itbecame impossible to execute the text of the treaty. The famous MesillaValley was a part of the debatable ground; and the sum of $10, 000, 000, paid to the Mexican Government for that and for an additional strip ofterritory on the southwest, was the smart-money which expiated theinaccuracy of the map--the necessary result, perhaps, of the want ofgood materials for its construction. 

It became my official duty in London, a few years ago, to apply tothe British Government for an authentic statement of their claim tojurisdiction over New Zealand. The official _Gazette_ for the 2d ofOctober, 1840, was sent me from the Foreign Office, as affording thedesired information. This number of the _Gazette_ contained theproclamations issued by the Lieutenant Governor of New Zealand, "inpursuance of the instructions he received from the Marquis of Normanby, one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, " asserting thejurisdiction of his government over the islands of New Zealand, anddeclaring them to extend "from 34° 30' North to 47° 10' South latitude. "It is scarcely necessary to say that south latitude was intended in bothinstances. This error of 69° of latitude, which would have extended theclaim of British jurisdiction over the whole breadth of the Pacific, had, apparently, escaped the notice of that government. 

 COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION. 

It would be easy to multiply illustrations in proof of the greatpractical importance of accurate scientific designations, drawn fromastronomical observations, in various relations connected withboundaries, surveys, and other geographical purposes; but I must hastento

3. A third important department, in which the services rendered byastronomy are equally conspicuous. I refer to commerce and navigation. It is mainly owing to the results of astronomical observation, thatmodern commerce has attained such a vast expansion, compared with thatof the ancient world. I have already reminded you that accurate ideasin this respect contributed materially to the conception in the mindof Columbus of his immortal enterprise, and to the practical successwith which it was conducted. It was mainly his skill in the use ofastronomical instruments--imperfect as they were--which enabled him, inspite of the bewildering variation of the compass, to find his wayacross the ocean. 

With the progress of the true system of the universe toward generaladoption, the problem of finding the longitude at sea presented itself. This was the avowed object of the foundation of the observatory atGreenwich;[A] and no one subject has received more of the attention ofastronomers, than those investigations of the lunar theory on whichthe requisite tables of the navigator are founded. The pathways of theocean are marked out in the sky above. The eternal lights of the heavensare the only Pharos whose beams never fail, which no tempest can shakefrom its foundation. Within my recollection, it was deemed a necessaryqualification for the master and the mate of a merchant-ship, and evenfor a prime hand, to be able to "work a lunar, " as it was called. Theimprovements in the chronometer have in practice, to a great extent, superseded this laborious operation; but observation remains, and unquestionably will for ever remain, the only dependence forascertaining the ship's time and deducting the longitude from thecomparison of that time with the chronometer. 

[Footnote A: Grant's _Physical Astronomy_, p. 460. ]

It may, perhaps, be thought that astronomical science is brought alreadyto such a state of perfection that nothing more is to be desired, or atleast that nothing more is attainable, in reference to such practicableapplications as I have described. This, however, is an idea whichgenerous minds will reject, in this, as in every other department ofhuman knowledge. In astronomy, as in every thing else, the discoveriesalready made, theoretical or practical, instead of exhausting thescience, or putting a limit to its advancement, do but furnish the meansand instruments of further progress. I have no doubt we live on theverge of discoveries and inventions, in every department, as brilliantas any that have ever been made; that there are new truths, new facts, ready to start into recognition on every side; and it seems to me therenever was an age, since the dawn of time, when men ought to be lessdisposed to rest satisfied with the progress already made, than the agein which we live; for there never was an age more distinguished foringenious research, for novel result, and bold generalization. 

That no further improvement is desirable in the means and methods ofascertaining the ship's place at sea, no one I think will fromexperience be disposed to assert. The last time I crossed the Atlantic, I walked the quarter-deck with the officer in charge of the noblevessel, on one occasion, when we were driving along before a leadingbreeze and under a head of steam, beneath a starless sky at midnight, atthe rate certainly of ten or eleven miles an hour. There is somethingsublime, but approaching the terrible, in such a scene;--the raylessgloom, the midnight chill, --the awful swell of the deep, --the dismalmoan of the wind through the rigging, the all but volcanic fires withinthe hold of the ship. I scarce know an occasion in ordinary life inwhich a reflecting mind feels more keenly its hopeless dependence onirrational forces beyond its own control. I asked my companion hownearly he could determine his ship's place at sea under favorablecircumstances. Theoretically, he answered, I think, within amile;--practically and usually within three or four. My next questionwas, how near do you think we may be to Cape Race;--that dangerousheadland which pushes its iron-bound unlighted bastions from theshore of Newfoundland far into the Atlantic, --first landfall tothe homeward-bound American vessel. We must, said he, by our lastobservations and reckoning, be within three or four miles of Cape Race. A comparison of these two remarks, under the circumstances in which wewere placed at the moment, brought my mind to the conclusion, that it isgreatly to be wished that the means should be discovered of finding theship's place more accurately, or that navigators would give Cape Race alittle wider berth. But I do not remember that one of the steam packetsbetween England and America was ever lost on that formidable point. 

It appears to me by no means unlikely that, with the improvement ofinstrumental power, and of the means of ascertaining the ship's timewith exactness, as great an advance beyond the present state of art andscience in finding a ship's place at sea may take place, as was effectedby the invention of the reflecting quadrant, the calculation of lunartables, and the improved construction of chronometers. 

 BABBAGE'S DIFFERENCE MACHINE. 

In the wonderful versatility of the human mind, the improvement, whenmade, will very probably be made by paths where it is least expected. The great inducement to Mr. Babbage to attempt the construction of anengine by which astronomical tables could be calculated, and evenprinted, by mechanical means and with entire accuracy, was the errorsin the requisite tables. Nineteen such errors, in point of fact, werediscovered in an edition of Taylor's Logarithms printed in 1796; someof which might have led to the most dangerous results in calculating aship's place. These nineteen errors, (of which one only was an error ofthe press), were pointed out in the _Nautical Almanac_ for 1832. In oneof these _errata_ the seat of the error was stated to be in cosine of14° 18' 3". Subsequent examination showed that there was an error of onesecond in this correction; and, accordingly, in the _Nautical Almanac_of the next year a new correction was necessary. But in making the newcorrection of one second, a new error was committed of ten degrees. Instead of cosine 14° 18' 2" the correction was printed cosine 4° 18' 2"making it still necessary, in some future edition of the _NauticalAlmanac_, to insert an _erratum_ in an _erratum_ of the _errata_ inTaylor's logarithms. [A]

[Footnote A: Edinburgh Review, Vol. LIX. , 282. ]

In the hope of obviating the possibility of such errors, Mr. Babbageprojected his calculating, or, as he prefers to call it, his differencemachine. Although this extraordinary undertaking has been arrested, inconsequence of the enormous expense attending its execution, enough hasbeen achieved to show the mechanical possibility of constructing anengine of this kind, and even one of far higher powers, of which Mr. Babbage has matured the conception, devised the notation, and executedthe drawings--themselves an imperishable monument of the genius of theauthor. 

I happened on one occasion to be in company with this highlydistinguished man of science, whose social qualities are as pleasing ashis constructive talent is marvelous, when another eminent _savant_, Count Strzelecki, just returned from his Oriental and Australian tour, observed that he found among the Chinese, a great desire to knowsomething more of Mr. Babbage's calculating machine, and especiallywhether, like their own _swampan_, it could be made to go into thepocket. Mr. Babbage good-humouredly observed that, thus far, he had beenvery much out of pocket with it. 

 INCREASED COMMAND OF INSTRUMENTAL POWER. 

Whatever advances may be made in astronomical science, theoreticalor applied, I am strongly inclined to think that they will be madein connection with an increased command of instrumental power. Thenatural order in which the human mind proceeds in the acquisitionof astronomical knowledge is minute and accurate observation of thephenomena of the heavens, the skillful discussion and analysis of theseobservations, and sound philosophy in generalizing the results. 

In pursuing this course, however, a difficulty presented itself, whichfor ages proved insuperable--and which to the same extent has existedin no other science, viz. : that all the leading phenomena are in theirappearance delusive. It is indeed true that in all sciences superficialobservation can only lead, except by chance, to superficial knowledge;but I know of no branch in which, to the same degree as in astronomy, the great leading phenomena are the reverse of true; while they yetappeal so strongly to the senses, that men who could foretell eclipses, and who discovered the precession of the equinoxes, still believed thatthe earth was at rest in the center of the universe, and that all thehost of heaven performed a daily revolution about it as a center. 

It usually happens in scientific progress, that when a great fact is atlength discovered, it approves itself at once to all competent judges. It furnishes a solution to so many problems, and harmonizes with so manyother facts, --that all the other _data_ as it were crystallize at onceabout it. In modern times, we have often witnessed such an impatience, so to say, of great truths, to be discovered, that it has frequentlyhappened that they have been found out simultaneously by more than oneindividual; and a disputed question of priority is an event of verycommon occurrence. Not so with the true theory of the heavens. Socomplete is the deception practiced on the senses, that it failed morethan once to yield to the suggestion of the truth; and it was only whenthe visual organs were armed with an almost preternatural instrumentalpower, that the great fact found admission to the human mind. 

 THE COPERNICAN SYSTEM. 

It is supposed that in the very dawn of science, Pythagoras or hisdisciples explained the apparent motion of the heavenly bodies aboutthe earth by the diurnal revolution of the earth on its axis. But thistheory, though bearing so deeply impressed upon it the great seal oftruth, _simplicity_, was in such glaring contrast with the evidence ofthe senses, that it failed of acceptance in antiquity or the middleages. It found no favor with minds like those of Aristotle, Archimedes, Hipparchus, Ptolemy, or any of the acute and learned Arabian or medięvalastronomers. All their ingenuity and all their mathematical skill wereexhausted in the development of a wonderfully complicated and ingenious, but erroneous history. The great master truth, rejected for itssimplicity, lay disregarded at their feet. 

At the second dawn of science, the great fact again beamed into the mindof Copernicus. Now, at least, in that glorious age which witnessed theinvention of printing, the great mechanical engine of intellectualprogress, and the discovery of America, we may expect that thislong-hidden revelation, a second time proclaimed, will command theassent of mankind. But the sensible phenomena were still too strongfor the theory; the glorious delusion of the rising and the settingsun could not be overcome. Tycho de Brahe furnished his Observatorywith instruments superior in number and quality to all that had beencollected before; but the great instrument of discovery, which, byaugmenting the optic power of the eye, enables it to penetrate beyondthe apparent phenomena, and to discern the true constitution of theheavenly bodies, was wanting at Uranienburg. The observations of Tychoas discussed by Kepler, conducted that most fervid, powerful, andsagacious mind to the discovery of some of the most important laws ofthe celestial motions; but it was not till Galileo, at Florence, hadpointed his telescope to the sky, that the Copernican system could besaid to be firmly established in the scientific world. 

 THE HOME OF GALILEO. 

On this great name, my Friends, assembled as we are to dedicate a templeto instrumental Astronomy, we may well pause for a moment. 

There is much, in every way, in the city of Florence to excite thecuriosity, to kindle the imagination, and to gratify the taste. Sheltered on the north by the vine-clad hills of Fiesoli, whosecyclopean walls carry back the antiquary to ages before the Roman, before the Etruscan power, the flowery city (Fiorenza) covers the sunnybanks of the Arno with its stately palaces. Dark and frowning pilesof medięval structure; a majestic dome, the prototype of St. Peter's;basilicas which enshrine the ashes of some of the mightiest of the dead;the stone where Dante stood to gaze on the Campanile; the house ofMichael Angelo, still occupied by a descendant of his lineage and name, his hammer, his chisel, his dividers, his manuscript poems, all as ifhe had left them but yesterday; airy bridges, which seem not so much torest on the earth as to hover over the waters they span; the loveliestcreations of ancient art, rescued from the grave of ages again toenchant the world; the breathing marbles of Michael Angelo, the glowingcanvas of Raphael and Titian, museums filled with medals and coins ofevery age from Cyrus the younger, and gems and amulets and vases fromthe sepulchers of Egyptian Pharaohs coėval with Joseph, and EtruscanLucumons that swayed Italy before the Romans, --libraries stored with thechoicest texts of ancient literature, --gardens of rose and orange, and pomegranate, and myrtle, --the very air you breathe languid withmusic and perfume;--such is Florence. But among all its fascinations, addressed to the sense, the memory, and the heart, there was noneto which I more frequently gave a meditative hour during a year'sresidence, than to the spot where Galileo Galilei sleeps beneath themarble door of Santa Croce; no building on which I gazed with greaterreverence, than I did upon the modest mansion at Arcetri, villa at onceand prison, in which that venerable sage, by command of the Inquisition, passed the sad closing years of his life. The beloved daughter on whomhe had depended to smooth his passage to the grave, laid there beforehim; the eyes with which he had discovered worlds before unknown, quenched in blindness:

 Ahime! quegli occhi si son fatti oscuri, Che vider pił di tutti i tempi antichi, E luce fur dei secoli futuri. 

That was the house, "where, " says Milton (another of those of whom theworld was not worthy), "I found and visited the famous Galileo, grownold--a prisoner to the Inquisition, for thinking on astronomy otherwisethan as the Dominican and Franciscan licensers thought. "[A] GreatHeavens! what a tribunal, what a culprit, what a crime! Let us thankGod, my Friends, that we live in the nineteenth century. Of all thewonders of ancient and modern art, statues and paintings, and jewels andmanuscripts, --the admiration and the delight of ages, --there was nothingwhich I beheld with more affectionate awe than that poor, rough tube, a few feet in length, --the work of his own hands, --that very "opticglass, " through which the "Tuscan Artist" viewed the moon, "At evening, from the top of Fesolé, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe. "

that poor little spy-glass (for it is scarcely more) through whichthe human eye first distinctly beheld the surface of the moon--firstdiscovered the phases of Venus, the satellites of Jupiter, and theseeming handles of Saturn--first penetrated the dusky depths of theheavens--first pierced the clouds of visual error, which, from thecreation of the world, involved the system of the Universe. 

[Footnote A: Prose Works, vol. 1, p. 213. ]

There are occasions in life in which a great mind lives years of raptenjoyment in a moment. I can fancy the emotions of Galileo, when, firstraising the newly-constructed telescope to the heavens, he saw fulfilledthe grand prophecy of Copernicus, and beheld the planet Venus crescentlike the moon. It was such another moment as that when the immortalprinters of Mentz and Strasburg received the first copy of the Bibleinto their hands, the work of their divine art; like that when Columbus, through the gray dawn of the 12th of October, 1492 (Copernicus, at theage of eighteen, was then a student at Cracow), beheld the shores of SanSalvador; like that when the law of gravitation first revealed itself tothe intellect of Newton; like that when Franklin saw by the stiffeningfibers of the hempen cord of his kite, that he held the lightning in hisgrasp; like that when Leverrier received back from Berlin the tidingsthat the predicted planet was found. 

Yes, noble Galileo, thou art right, _E pur si muove. _ "It does move. "Bigots may make thee recant it; but it moves, nevertheless. Yes, theearth moves, and the planets move, and the mighty waters move, and thegreat sweeping tides of air move, and the empires of men move, and theworld of thought moves, ever onward and upward to higher facts andbolder theories. The Inquisition may seal thy lips, but they can no morestop the progress of the great truth propounded by Copernicus, anddemonstrated by thee, than they can stop the revolving earth. 

Close now, venerable sage, that sightless, tearful eye; it has seenwhat man never before saw--it has seen enough. Hang up that poorlittle spy-glass--it has done its work. Not Herschell nor Rosse have, comparatively, done more. Franciscans and Dominicans deride thydiscoveries now; but the time will come when, from two hundredobservatories in Europe and America, the glorious artillery of scienceshall nightly assault the skies, but they shall gain no conquests inthose glittering fields before which thine shall be forgotten. Rest inpeace, great Columbus of the heavens--like him scorned, persecuted, broken-hearted!--in other ages, in distant hemispheres, when thevotaries of science, with solemn acts of consecration, shall dedicatetheir stately edifices to the cause of knowledge and truth, thy nameshall be mentioned with honor. 

 NEW PERIODS IN ASTRONOMICAL SCIENCE. 

It is not my intention, in dwelling with such emphasis upon theinvention of the telescope, to ascribe undue importance, in promotingthe advancement of science, to the increase of instrumental power. Too much, indeed, cannot be said of the service rendered by itsfirst application in confirming and bringing into general repute theCopernican system; but for a considerable time, little more was effectedby the wondrous instrument than the gratification of curiosity andtaste, by the inspection of the planetary phases, and the additionof the rings and satellites of Saturn to the solar family. Newton, prematurely despairing of any further improvement in the refractingtelescope, applied the principle of reflection; and the nicerobservations now made, no doubt, hastened the maturity of his greatdiscovery of the law of gravitation; but that discovery was the work ofhis transcendent genius and consummate skill. 

With Bradley, in 1741, a new period commenced in instrumental astronomy, not so much of discovery as of measurement. The superior accuracy andminuteness with which the motions and distances of the heavenly bodieswere now observed, resulted in the accumulation of a mass of newmaterials, both for tabular comparison and theoretical speculation. These materials formed the enlarged basis of astronomical sciencebetween Newton and Sir William Herschell. His gigantic reflectorsintroduced the astronomer to regions of space before unvisited--extendedbeyond all previous conception the range of the observed phenomena, andwith it proportionably enlarged the range of constructive theory. Thediscovery of a new primary planet and its attendant satellites wasbut the first step of his progress into the labyrinth of the heavens. Cotemporaneously with his observations, the French astronomers, andespecially La Place, with a geometrical skill scarcely, if at all, inferior to that of its great author, resumed the whole system ofNewton, and brought every phenomenon observed since his time within hislaws. Difficulties of fact, with which he struggled in vain, gave way tomore accurate observations; and problems that defied the power of hisanalysis, yielded to the modern improvements of the calculus. 

 HERSCHELL'S NEBULAR THEORY. 

But there is no _Ultima Thule_ in the progress of science. With therecent augmentations of telescopic power, the details of the nebulartheory, proposed by Sir W. Herschell with such courage and ingenuity, have been drawn in question. Many--most--of those milky patches in whichhe beheld what he regarded as cosmical matter, as yet in an unformedstate, --the rudimental material of worlds not yet condensed, --have beenresolved into stars, as bright and distinct as any in the firmament. I well recall the glow of satisfaction with which, on the 22d ofSeptember, 1847, being then connected with the University at Cambridge, I received a letter from the venerable director of the Observatorythere, beginning with these memorable words:--"You will rejoice withme that the great nebula in Orion has yielded to the powers of ourincomparable telescope! * * * It should be borne in mind that thisnebula, and that of Andromeda [which has been also resolved atCambridge], are the last strongholds of the nebular theory. "[A]

[Footnote A: _Annals of the Observatory of Harvard College_, p. 121. ]

But if some of the adventurous speculations built by Sir WilliamHerschell on the bewildering revelations of his telescope have beensince questioned, the vast progress which has been made in siderealastronomy, to which, as I understand, the Dudley Observatory will beparticularly devoted, the discovery of the parallax of the fixed stars, the investigation of the interior relations of binary and triple systemsof stars, the theories for the explanation of the extraordinary, not tosay fantastic, shapes discerned in some of the nebulous systems--whirlsand spirals radiating through spaces as vast as the orbit of Neptune;[A]the glimpses at systems beyond that to which our sun belongs;--these areall splendid results, which may fairly be attributed to the school ofHerschell, and will for ever insure no secondary place to that name inthe annals of science. 

[Footnote A: See the remarkable memoir of Professor Alexander, "On theorigin of the forms and the present condition of some of the clusters ofstars, and several of the nebulę, " (Gould's _Astronomical Journal_, Vol. Iii, p. 95. )]

 RELATIONSHIP OF THE LIBERAL ARTS. 

In the remarks which I have hitherto made, I have had mainly in viewthe direct connection of astronomical science with the uses of life andthe service of man. But a generous philosophy contemplates the subjectin higher relations. It is a remark as old, at least, as Plato, andis repeated from him more than once by Cicero, that all the liberalarts have a common bond and relationship. [A] The different sciencescontemplate as their immediate object the different departments ofanimate and inanimate nature; but this great system itself is butone, and its parts are so interwoven with each other, that the mostextraordinary relations and unexpected analogies are constantlypresenting themselves; and arts and sciences seemingly the leastconnected, render to each other the most effective assistance. 

[Footnote A: Archias, i. ; De Oratore, iii. , 21. ]

The history of electricity, galvanism, and magnetism, furnishes the moststriking illustration of this remark. Commencing with the meteorologicalphenomena of our own atmosphere, and terminating with the observationof the remotest heavens, it may well be adduced, on an occasion likethe present. Franklin demonstrated the identity of lightning and theelectric fluid. This discovery gave a great impulse to electricalresearch, with little else in view but the means of protection fromthe thunder-cloud. A purely accidental circumstance led the physicianGalvani, at Bologna, to trace the mysterious element, under conditionsentirely novel, both of development and application. In this new form itbecame, in the hands of Davy, the instrument of the most extraordinarychemical operations; and earths and alkalis, touched by the creativewire, started up into metals that float on water, and kindle in theair. At a later period, the closest affinities are observed betweenelectricity and magnetism, on the one hand; while, on the other, therelations of polarity are detected between acids and alkalis. Platingand gilding henceforth become electrical processes. In the lastapplications of the same subtle medium, it has become the messenger ofintelligence across the land and beneath the sea; and is now employed bythe astronomer to ascertain the difference of longitudes, to transferthe beats of the clock from one station to another, and to record themoment of his observations with automatic accuracy. How large a sharehas been borne by America in these magnificent discoveries andapplications, among the most brilliant achievements of modern science, will sufficiently appear from the repetition of the names of Franklin, Henry, Morse, Walker, Mitchell, Lock, and Bond. 

 VERSATILITY OF GENIUS. 

It has sometimes happened, whether from the harmonious relations toeach other of every department of science, or from rare felicity ofindividual genius, that the most extraordinary intellectual versatilityhas been manifested by the same person. Although Newton's transcendenttalent did not blaze out in childhood, yet as a boy he discovered greataptitude for mechanical contrivance. His water-clock, self-movingvehicle, and mill, were the wonder of the village; the latter propelledby a living mouse. Sir David Brewster represents the accounts asdiffering, whether the mouse was made to advance "by a string attachedto its tail, " or by "its unavailing attempts to reach a portion of cornplaced above the wheel. " It seems more reasonable to conclude thatthe youthful discoverer of the law of gravitation intended by thecombination of these opposite attractions to produce a balancedmovement. It is consoling to the average mediocrity of the race toperceive in these sportive assays, that the mind of Newton passedthrough the stage of boyhood. But emerging from boyhood, what a bound itmade, as from earth to heaven! Hardly commencing bachelor of arts, atthe age of twenty-four, he untwisted the golden and silver threads ofthe solar spectrum, simultaneously or soon after conceived the method offluxions, and arrived at the elemental idea of universal gravity beforehe had passed to his master's degree. Master of Arts indeed! Thatdegree, if no other, was well bestowed. Universities are unjustlyaccused of fixing science in stereotype. That diploma is enough ofitself to redeem the honors of academical parchment from centuries oflearned dullness and scholastic dogmatism. 

But the great object of all knowledge is to enlarge and purify the soul, to fill the mind with noble contemplations, to furnish a refinedpleasure, and to lead our feeble reason from the works of nature up toits great Author and Sustainer. Considering this as the ultimate end ofscience, no branch of it can surely claim precedence of Astronomy. Noother science furnishes such a palpable embodiment of the abstractionswhich lie at the foundation of our intellectual system; the great ideasof time, and space, and extension, and magnitude, and number, andmotion, and power. How grand the conception of the ages on ages requiredfor several of the secular equations of the solar system; of distancesfrom which the light of a fixed star would not reach us in twentymillions of years, of magnitudes compared with which the earth is but afoot-ball; of starry hosts--suns like our own--numberless as the sandson the shore; of worlds and systems shooting through the infinitespaces, with a velocity compared with which the cannon-ball is away-worn, heavy-paced traveler![A]

[Footnote A: Nichol's _Architecture of the Heavens_, p. 160. ]

 THE SPECTACLE OF THE HEAVENS. 

Much, however, as we are indebted to our observatories for elevating ourconceptions of the heavenly bodies, they present, even to the unaidedsight, scenes of glory which words are too feeble to describe. I hadoccasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from Providence toBoston; and for this purpose rose at 2 o'clock in the morning. Everything around was wrapped in darkness and hushed in silence, broken onlyby what seemed at that hour the unearthly clank and rush of the train. It was a mild, serene midsummer's night; the sky was without acloud--the winds were whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, hadjust risen, and the stars shone with a spectral luster but littleaffected by her presence; Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of theday; the Pleiades, just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence inthe east; Lyra sparkled near the zenith; Andromeda veiled her newlydiscovered glories from the naked eye in the south; the steady Pointers, far beneath the pole, looked meekly up from the depths of the north totheir sovereign. 

Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As we proceeded, the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible; the intense blueof the sky began to soften, the smaller stars, like little children, went first to rest; the sister-beams of the Pleiades soon meltedtogether; but the bright constellations of the west and north remainedunchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands ofangels hidden from mortal eyes shifted the scenery of the heavens; theglories of night dissolved into the glories of the dawn. The blue skynow turned more softly gray; the great watch-stars shut up their holyeyes; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon blushedalong the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the inflowingtides of the morning light, which came pouring down from above in onegreat ocean of radiance; till at length, as we reached the Blue Hills, aflash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and turned thedewy teardrops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds. In a fewseconds the everlasting gates of the morning were thrown wide open, andthe lord of day, arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man, began his course. 

I do not wonder at the superstition of the ancient Magians, who in themorning of the world went up to the hill-tops of Central Asia, andignorant of the true God, adored the most glorious work of his hand. But I am filled with amazement, when I am told that in this enlightenedage, and in the heart of the Christian world, there are persons who canwitness this daily manifestation of the power and wisdom of the Creator, and yet say in their hearts, "There is no God. "

 UNDISCOVERED BODIES. 

Numerous as are the heavenly bodies visible to the naked eye, andglorious as are their manifestations, it is probable that in our ownsystem there are great numbers as yet undiscovered. Just two hundredyears ago this year, Huyghens announced the discovery of one satelliteof Saturn, and expressed the opinion that the six planets and sixsatellites then known, and making up the perfect number of _twelve_, composed the whole of our planetary system. In 1729 an astronomicalwriter expressed the opinion that there might be other bodies in oursystem, but that the limit of telescopic power had been reached, and nofurther discoveries were likely to be made. [A] The orbit of one cometonly had been definitively calculated. Since that time the power of thetelescope has been indefinitely increased; two primary planets of thefirst class, ten satellites, and forty-three small planets revolvingbetween Mars and Jupiter, have been discovered, the orbits of six orseven hundred comets, some of brief period, have been ascertained;--andit has been computed, that hundreds of thousands of these mysteriousbodies wander through our system. There is no reason to think that allthe primary planets, which revolve about the sun, have been discovered. An indefinite increase in the number of asteroids may be anticipated;while outside of Neptune, between our sun and the nearest fixed star, supposing the attraction of the sun to prevail through half thedistance, there is room for ten more primary planets succeeding eachother at distances increasing in a geometrical ratio. The first ofthese will, unquestionably, be discovered as soon as the perturbationsof Neptune shall have been accurately observed; and with maps of theheavens, on which the smallest telescopic stars are laid down, it may bediscovered much sooner. 

[Footnote A: _Memoirs of A. A. S. _, vol. Iii, 275. ]

 THE VASTNESS OF CREATION. 

But it is when we turn our observation and our thoughts from our ownsystem, to the systems which lie beyond it in the heavenly spaces, thatwe approach a more adequate conception of the vastness of creation. Allanalogy teaches us that the sun which gives light to us is but one ofthose countless stellar fires which deck the firmament, and that everyglittering star in that shining host is the center of a system as vastand as full of subordinate luminaries as our own. Of these suns--centersof planetary systems--thousands are visible to the naked eye, millionsare discovered by the telescope. Sir John Herschell, in the account ofhis operations at the Cape of Good Hope (p. 381) calculates that aboutfive and a half millions of stars are visible enough to be _distinctlycounted_ in a twenty-foot reflector, in both hemispheres. He adds, that"the actual number is much greater, there can be little doubt. " Hisillustrious father, estimated on one occasion that 125, 000 stars passedthrough the field of his forty foot reflector in a quarter of an hour. This would give 12, 000, 000 for the entire circuit of the heavens, in asingle telescopic zone; and this estimate was made under the assumptionthat the nebulę were masses of luminous matter not yet condensed intosuns. 

These stupendous calculations, however, form but the first column of theinventory of the universe. Faint white specks are visible, even to thenaked eye of a practiced observer in different parts of the heavens. Under high magnifying powers, several thousands of such spots arevisible, --no longer however, faint, white specks, but many of themresolved by powerful telescopes into vast aggregations of stars, eachof which may, with propriety, be compared with the milky way. Many ofthese nebulę, however, resisted the power of Sir Wm. Herschell's greatreflector, and were, accordingly, still regarded by him as masses ofunformed matter, not yet condensed into suns. This, till a few yearssince, was, perhaps, the prevailing opinion; and the nebular theoryfilled a large space in modern astronomical science. But with theincrease of instrumental power, especially under the mighty grasp ofLord Rosse's gigantic reflector, and the great refractors at Pulkova andCambridge, the most irresolvable of these nebulę have given way; and thebetter opinion now is, that every one of them is a galaxy, like our ownmilky way, composed of millions of suns. In other words, we are broughtto the bewildering conclusion that thousands of these misty specks, thegreater part of them too faint to be seen with the naked eye, are, noteach a universe like our solar system, but each a "swarm" of universesof unappreciable magnitude. [A] The mind sinks, overpowered by thecontemplation. We repeat the words, but they no longer convey distinctideas to the understanding. 

[Footnote A: Humboldt's _Cosmos_, iii. 41. ]

 CONCEPTIONS OF THE UNIVERSE. 

But these conclusions, however vast their comprehension, carry us butanother step forward in the realms of sidereal astronomy. A propermotion in space of our sun, and of the fixed stars as we call them, has long been believed to exist. Their vast distances only prevent itsbeing more apparent. The great improvement of instruments of measurementwithin the last generation has not only established the existence ofthis motion, but has pointed to the region in the starry vault aroundwhich our whole solar and stellar system, with its myriad of attendantplanetary worlds, appears to be performing a mighty revolution. If, then, we assume that outside of the system to which we belong and inwhich our sun is but a star like Aldebaran or Sirius, the differentnebulę of which we have spoken, --thousands of which spot theheavens--constitute a distinct family of universes, we must, followingthe guide of analogy, attribute to each of them also, beyond all therevolutions of their individual attendant planetary systems, a greatrevolution, comprehending the whole; while the same course of analogicalreasoning would lead us still further onward, and in the last analysis, require us to assume a transcendental connection between all thesemighty systems--a universe of universes, circling round in the infinityof space, and preserving its equilibrium by the same laws of mutualattraction which bind the lower worlds together. 

It may be thought that conceptions like these are calculated rather todepress than to elevate us in the scale of being; that, banished as heis by these contemplations to a corner of creation, and there reducedto an atom, man sinks to nothingness in this infinity of worlds. But asecond thought corrects the impression. These vast contemplations arewell calculated to inspire awe, but not abasement. Mind and matter areincommensurable. An immortal soul, even while clothed in "this muddyvesture of decay, " is in the eye of God and reason, a purer essence thanthe brightest sun that lights the depths of heaven. The organized humaneye, instinct with life and soul, which, gazing through the telescope, travels up to the cloudy speck in the handle of Orion's sword, and bidsit blaze forth into a galaxy as vast as ours, stands higher in the orderof being than all that host of luminaries. The intellect of Newton whichdiscovered the law that holds the revolving worlds together, is a noblerwork of God than a universe of universes of unthinking matter. 

If, still treading the loftiest paths of analogy, we adopt thesupposition, --to me I own the grateful supposition, --that the countlessplanetary worlds which attend these countless suns, are the abodes ofrational beings like man, instead of bringing back from this exaltedconception a feeling of insignificance, as if the individuals of ourrace were but poor atoms in the infinity of being, I regard it, on thecontrary, as a glory of our human nature, that it belongs to a familywhich no man can number of rational natures like itself. In the order ofbeing they may stand beneath us, or they may stand above us; _he_ maywell be content with his place, who is made "a little lower than theangels. "

 CONTEMPLATION OF THE HEAVENS. 

Finally, my Friends, I believe there is no contemplation better adaptedto awaken devout ideas than that of the heavenly bodies, --no branch ofnatural science which bears clearer testimony to the power and wisdom ofGod than that to which you this day consecrate a temple. The heart ofthe ancient world, with all the prevailing ignorance of the true natureand motions of the heavenly orbs, was religiously impressed by theirsurvey. There is a passage in one of those admirable philosophicaltreatises of Cicero composed in the decline of life, as a solace underdomestic bereavement and patriotic concern at the impending convulsionsof the state, in which, quoting from some lost work of Aristotle, hetreats the topic in a manner which almost puts to shame the teachings ofChristian wisdom. 

"Pręclare ergo Aristoteles, 'Si essent, ' inquit, 'qui sub terra semperhabitavissent, bonis et illustribus domiciliis quę essent ornata signisatque picturis, instructaque rebus iis omnibus quibus abundant ii quibeati putantur, nec tamen exissent unquam supra terram; accepissentautem fama et auditione, esse quoddam numen et vim Deorum, --deindealiquo tempore patefactis terrę faucibus ex illis abditis sedibusevadere in hęc loca quę nos incolimus, atque exire potuissent; cumrepente terram et maria coelumque, vidissent; nubium magnitudinemventorumque vim, cognovissent; aspexissentque solem, ejusque tummagnitudinem, pulchritudinemque; tum etiam efficientiam cognovissent, quod is diem efficeret, toto coelo luce diffusa; cum autem terras noxopacasset, tum coelum totum cernerent astris distinctum et ornatum, lunęque luminum varietatem tum crescentis tum senescentis, corumqueomnium ortus et occasus atque in ęternitate ratos immutabilesquecursus;--hęc cum viderent, profecto et esse Deos, et hęc tanta operaDeorum esse, arbitrarentur. "[A]

There is much by day to engage the attention of the Observatory; thesun, his apparent motions, his dimensions, the spots on his disc (tous the faint indications of movements of unimagined grandeur in hisluminous atmosphere), a solar eclipse, a transit of the inferiorplanets, the mysteries of the spectrum;--all phenomena of vastimportance and interest. But night is the astronomer's accepted time; hegoes to his delightful labors when the busy world goes to its rest. Adark pall spreads over the resorts of active life; terrestrial objects, hill and valley, and rock and stream, and the abodes of men disappear;but the curtain is drawn up which concealed the heavenly hosts. Therethey shine and there they move, as they moved and shone to the eyes ofNewton and Galileo, of Kepler and Copernicus, of Ptolemy and Hipparchus;yes, as they moved and shone when the morning stars sang together, andall the sons of God shouted for joy. All has changed on earth; butthe glorious heavens remain unchanged. The plow passes over the siteof mighty cities, --the homes of powerful nations are desolate, thelanguages they spoke are forgotten; but the stars that shone for themare shining for us; the same eclipses run their steady cycle; the sameequinoxes call out the flowers of spring, and send the husbandmanto the harvest; the sun pauses at either tropic as he did when hiscourse began; and sun and moon, and planet and satellite, and star andconstellation and galaxy, still bear witness to the power, the wisdom, and the love, which placed them in the heavens and uphold them there. 

[Footnote A: "Nobly does Aristotle observe, that if there were beingswho had always lived under ground, in convenient, nay, in magnificentdwellings, adorned with statues and pictures, and every thing whichbelongs to prosperous life, but who had never come above ground; who hadheard, however, by fame and report, of the being and power of the gods;if, at a certain time, the portals of the earth being thrown open, they had been able to emerge from those hidden abodes to the regionsinhabited by us; when suddenly they had seen the earth, the sea, andthe sky; had perceived the vastness of the clouds and the force of thewinds; had contemplated the sun, his magnitude and his beauty, andstill more his effectual power, that it is he who makes the day, bythe diffusion of his light through the whole sky; and, when night haddarkened the earth, should then behold the whole heavens studded andadorned with stars, and the various lights of the waxing and waningmoon, the risings and the settings of all these heavenly bodies, and thecourses fixed and immutable in all eternity; when, I say, they shouldsee these things, truly they would believe that there were gods, andthese so great things are their works. "--Cicero, _De Natura Deorum_ lib. Ii. , § 30. ]