ofessors Pickering,
Comstock, and Hale. This board, "in order to obviate a criticism
that the astronomical work of the observatory has not been prosecuted
with that vigor and continuity of purpose which should be shown in
a national observatory," recommended that the Astronomical Director
and the Director of the Nautical Almanac should be civil officers,
with sufficient salaries. A bill to this effect was introduced
into each House of Congress at the next session, and referred to
the respective naval committees, but never reported.

In 1901 Congress, in an amendment to the naval appropriation bill,
provided a permanent Board of Visitors to the observatory, in whom
were vested full powers to report upon its condition and expenditures,
and to prescribe its plan of work. It was also provided in the same
law that the superintendent of the observatory should, until further
legislation by Congress, be a line officer of the navy of a rank not
below that of captain. In the first annual report of this board is
the following clause:--

"We wish to record our deliberate and unanimous judgment that the
law should be changed so as to provide that the official head of
the observatory--perhaps styled simply the Director--should be an
eminent astronomer appointed by the President by and with the consent
of the Senate."

Although the board still has a legal existence, Congress, in
1902, practically suspended its functions by declining to make any
appropriation for its expenses. Moreover, since the detachment of
Professor Brown, Astronomical Director, no one has been appointed to
fill the vacancy thus arising. At the time of the present writing,
therefore, the entire responsibility for planning and directing
the work of the observatory is officially vested in the naval
superintendent, as it was at the old observatory.

V

GREAT TELESCOPES AND THEIR WORK

One hardly knows where, in the history of science, to look for an
important movement that had its effective start in so pure and simple
an accident as that which led to the building of the great Washington
telescope, and went on to the discovery of the satellites of Mars.
Very different might have been a chapter of astronomical history,
but for the accident of Mr. Cyrus Field, of Atlantic cable fame,
having a small dinner party at the Arlington Hotel, Washington, in the
winter of 1870. Among the guests were Senators Hamlin and Casserly,
Mr. J. E. Hilgard of the Co