protect my
honor And prove the Copernican Newton Keplar and Gallileo
theories false I solicit transportation to your department
so that I can come and explain the whole of Nature and so
enable you to obtain the true value of the Moon from both
latitudes at the same instant.

My method of working does not accord with yours Hence will
require more time to comprehend I have asked Professor
James E Keeler to examine the work and forward his report
with this application for transportation

Yours truly ------ ------

One day in July, 1895, I was perplexed by the receipt of a cable
dispatch from Paris in the following terms:--

Will you act? Consult Gould. Furber.

The dispatch was accompanied by the statement that an immediate answer
was requested and prepaid. Dr. Gould being in Cambridge, and I in
Washington, it was not possible to consult him immediately as to what
was meant. After consultation with an official of the Coast Survey,
I reached the conclusion that the request had something to do with
the International Metric Commission, of which Dr. Gould was a member,
and that I was desired to act on some committee. As there could be no
doubt of my willingness to do this, I returned an affirmative answer,
and wrote to Dr. Gould to know exactly what was required. Great was
my surprise to receive an answer stating that he knew nothing of
the subject, and could not imagine what was meant. The mystery
was dispelled a few days later by a visit from Dr. E. R. L. Gould,
the well-known professor of economics, who soon after extended his
activities into the more practical line of the presidency of the
Suburban Homes and Improvement Company of New York. He had just
arrived from Paris, where a movement was on foot to induce the French
government to make such modifications in the regulations governing
the instruction and the degrees at the French universities as would
make them more attractive to American students, who had hitherto
frequented the German universities to the almost entire exclusion
of those of France. It was desired by the movers in the affair to
organize an American committee to act with one already formed at
Paris; and it was desired that I should undertake this work.

I at first demurred on two grounds. I could not see how, with
propriety, Americans could appear as petitioners to the French
government to modify its educational system for their benefit.
Moreover, I did not want to ta