rom which I could escape should it prove uncongenial,
I decided to try, and indited the following letter:--

Nautical Almanac Office,
Cambridge, Mass., August 22, 1861.

Sir,--I have the honor to apply to you for my appointment
to the office of Professor of Mathematics in the United
States Navy. I would respectfully refer you to Commander
Charles Henry Davis, U. S. N., Professor Benjamin Peirce,
of Harvard University, Dr. Benjamin A. Gould, of Cambridge,
and Professor Joseph Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution, for any information respecting me which will
enable you to judge of the propriety of my appointment.

With high respect,
Your obedient servant,
Simon Newcomb,
Assistant, Nautical Almanac.

Hon. Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy,
Washington, D. C.

I also wrote to Captain Davis, who was then on duty in the Navy
Department, telling him what I had done, but made no further effort.
Great was my surprise when, a month later, I found in the post-office,
without the slightest premonition, a very large official envelope,
containing my commission duly signed by Abraham Lincoln, President
of the United States. The confidence in the valor, abilities, etc.,
of the appointee, expressed in the commission, was very assuring.
Accompanying it was a letter from the Secretary of the Navy
directing me to report to the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography,
in Washington, for such duty as it might assign me. I arrived on
October 6, and immediately called on Professor J. S. Hubbard, who was
the leading astronomer of the observatory. On the day following I
reported as directed, and was sent to Captain Gilliss, the recently
appointed Superintendent of the Naval Observatory, before whom I
stood with much trepidation. In reply to his questions I had to
confess my entire inexperience in observatory work or the making
of astronomical observations. A coast survey observer had once
let me look through his transit instrument and try to observe the
passage of a star. On the eclipse expedition mentioned in the last
chapter I had used a sextant. This was about all the experience
in practical astronomy which I could claim. In fact I had never
been inside of an observatory, except on two or three occasions at
Cambridge as a visitor. The captain reassured me by saying that
no great experience was expected of a newcomer, and told me that I
should go to work on the transit instrument un