hrough the telescope. I replied
that the sky was now covered, and it was very doubtful whether we
should get a view of the moon. But he required that the telescope
should be at once pointed at it. This was done, and at that moment a
clear space appeared between the clouds. I remarked upon the fact,
but he seemed to take it as a matter of course that the cloud would
get out of the way when he wanted to look.

I made some remark about the "vernier" of one of the circles on
the telescope.

"Why do you call it a vernier?" said he. "Its proper term is a
nonius, because Nonius was its inventor and Vernier took the idea
from him."

In this the national spirit showed itself. Nonius, a Portuguese,
had invented something on a similar principle and yet essentially
different from the modern vernier, invented by a Frenchman of
that name.

Accompanying the party was a little girl, ten or twelve years old,
who, though an interested spectator, modestly kept in the background
and said nothing. On her arrival home, however, she broke her
silence by running upstairs with the exclamation,--

"Oh, Mamma, he's the funniest emperor you ever did see!"

My connection with the observatory ceased September 15, 1877, when
I was placed in charge of the Nautical Almanac Office. It may not,
however, be out of place to summarize the measures which have since
been taken both by the Navy Department and by eminent officers of
the service to place the work of the institution on a sound basis.
One great difficulty in doing this arises from the fact that neither
Congress nor the Navy Department has ever stated the object which
the government had in view in erecting the observatory, or assigned
to it any well-defined public functions. The superintendent and his
staff have therefore been left to solve the question what to do from
time to time as best they could.

In the spring of 1877 Rear-Admiral John Rodgers became the
superintendent of the observatory. As a cool and determined fighter
during the civil war he was scarcely second even to Farragut, and he
was at the same time one of the ablest officers and most estimable
men that our navy ever included in its ranks. "I would rather be
John Rodgers dead than any other man I know living," was said by
one of the observatory assistants after his death. Not many months
after his accession he began to consider the question whether the wide
liberty which had been allowed the professors in choos