n ephemeris and nautical
almanac was made by Congress in 1849. Lieutenant Charles Henry
Davis, as a leader and moving spirit in securing the appropriation,
was naturally made the first superintendent of the work. At that time
astronomical science in our country was so far from being reduced to
a system that it seemed necessary to have the work prepared at some
seat of learning. So, instead of founding the office in Washington,
it was established at Cambridge, the seat of Harvard University,
where it could have the benefit of the technical knowledge of experts,
and especially of Professor Benjamin Peirce, who was recognized as
the leading mathematician of America. Here it remained until 1866,
when conditions had so far changed that the office was removed to
Washington, where it has since remained.

To this work I was especially attracted because its preparation seemed
to me to embody the highest intellectual power to which man had ever
attained. The matter used to present itself to my mind somewhat in
this way: Supply any man with the fundamental data of astronomy, the
times at which stars and planets cross the meridian of a place, and
other matters of this kind. He is informed that each of these bodies
whose observations he is to use is attracted by all the others with
a force which varies as the inverse square of their distance apart.
From these data he is to weigh the bodies, predict their motion in
all future time, compute their orbits, determine what changes of form
and position these orbits will undergo through thousands of ages,
and make maps showing exactly over what cities and towns on the
surface of the earth an eclipse of the sun will pass fifty years
hence, or over what regions it did pass thousands of years ago.
A more hopeless problem than this could not be presented to the
ordinary human intellect. There are tens of thousands of men who
could be successful in all the ordinary walks of life, hundreds who
could wield empires, thousands who could gain wealth, for one who
could take up this astronomical problem with any hope of success.
The men who have done it are therefore in intellect the select few
of the human race,--an aristocracy ranking above all others in the
scale of being. The astronomical ephemeris is the last practical
outcome of their productive genius.

On the question whether the world generally reasoned in this way,
I do not remember having any distinct idea. This was certainly
not