because I was indifferent to the question, but because it never
strongly presented itself to my mind. From my point of view it would
not have been an important one, because I had already formed the
conviction that one should choose that sphere in life to which he was
most strongly attracted, or for which his faculties best fitted him.

A few months previous to my advent Commander Davis had been
detached from the superintendency and ordered to command the
sloop St. Mary's. He was succeeded by Professor Joseph Winlock,
who afterward succeeded George P. Bond as director of the Harvard
Observatory. Most companionable in the society of his friends,
Winlock was as silent as General Grant with the ordinary run of men.
Withal, he had a way of putting his words into exact official form.
The following anecdote of him used to be current. While he was
attached to the Naval Academy, he was introduced one evening at a
reception to a visiting lady. He looked at the lady for a decorous
length of time, and she looked at him; then they parted without
saying a word. His introducer watched the scene, and asked him,
"Why did you not talk to that lady?"

"I had no statement to make to her," was the reply.

Dr. Gould told me this story was founded on fact, but when, after
Winlock's death, it was put off on me with some alterations, I felt
less sure.

The following I believe to be authentic. It occurred several
years later. Hilgard, in charge of the Coast Survey office,
was struck by the official terseness of the communications he
occasionally received from Winlock, and resolved to be his rival.
They were expecting additions to their families about the same time,
and had doubtless spoken of the subject. When Hilgard's arrived,
he addressed a communication to Winlock in these terms:--

"Mine's a boy. What's yours?"

In due course of time the following letter was received in reply:--

Dear Hilgard:--
_Boy._
Yours, etc., J. Winlock.

When some time afterward I spoke to Winlock on the subject, and
told him what Hilgard's motive was, he replied, "It was not fair
in Hilgard to try and take me unawares in that way. Had I known
what he was driving at, I might have made my letter still shorter."
I did not ask him how he would have done it. It is of interest that
the "boy" afterward became one of the assistant secretaries of the
Smithsonian Institution.

One of the most remarkable features of the history of the "Nautical