arly appointees were William Harkness and John A. Eastman, whose
subsequent careers in connection with the observatory are well known.

The death of Professor Hubbard in 1863 led to my taking his place,
in charge of the mural circle, early in September of that year.
This gave me an opportunity of attempting a little improvement
in the arrangements. I soon became conscious of the fact, which
no one had previously taken much account of, that upon the plan of
each man reducing his own observations, not only was there an entire
lack of homogeneity in the work, but the more work one did at night
the more he had to do by day. It was with some trepidation that I
presented the case to Gilliss, who speedily saw that work done with
the instruments should be regarded as that of the observatory, and
reduced on a uniform plan, instead of being considered as the property
of the individual who happened to make it. Thus was introduced the
first step toward a proper official system.

In February, 1865, the observatory sustained the greatest loss
it had ever suffered, in the sudden death of its superintendent.
What it would have grown to had he lived it is useless to guess,
but there is little doubt that its history would have been quite
different from what it is.

Soon afterward Admiral Davis left his position as Chief of the
Bureau of Navigation to take the subordinate one of Superintendent
of the Observatory. This step was very gratifying to me, Davis had
not only a great interest in scientific work, especially astronomy,
but a genuine admiration of scientific men which I have never seen
exceeded, accompanied with a corresponding love of association with
them and their work.

In October, 1865, occurred what was, in my eyes, the greatest event
in the history of the observatory. The new transit circle arrived
from Berlin in its boxes. Now for the first time in its history, the
observatory would have a meridian instrument worthy of it, and would,
it was hoped, be able to do the finest work in at least one branch
of astronomy. To my great delight, Davis placed me in charge of it.
The last three months of the year were taken up with mounting it
in position and making those investigations of its peculiarities
which are necessary before an instrument of the kind is put into
regular use. On the 1st day of January, 1866, this was all done,
and we were ready to begin operations. An opportunity thus arose
of seeing what we could do