country was still
silent on the subject. The result of continued silence was not hard
to foresee. Congress would, at the last moment, make a munificent
appropriation for sending out parties to observe the transit.
The plans and instruments would be made in a hurry, and the parties
packed off without any well-considered ideas of what they were to
do; and the whole thing would end in failure so far as results of
any great scientific value were concerned.

I commenced the discussion by a little paper on the subject in the
"American Journal of Science," but there was no one to follow it up.
So, at the spring meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, in
1870, I introduced a resolution for the appointment of a committee to
consider the subject and report upon the observations which should
be made. This resolution was adopted, and a few days afterward
Professor Henry invited me to call at his office in the evening to
discuss with himself and Professor Peirce, then superintendent of
the Coast Survey, the composition of the committee.

At the conference I began by suggesting Professor Peirce himself
for chairman. Naturally this met with no opposition; then I waited
for the others to go on. But they seemed determined to throw the
whole onus of the matter on me. This was the more embarrassing,
because I believe that, in parliamentary law and custom, the mover
of a resolution of this sort has a prescribed right to be chairman
of the committee which he proposes shall be appointed. If not
chairman, it would seem that he ought at any rate to be a member.
But I was determined not to suggest myself in any way, so I went on
and suggested Admiral Davis. This nomination was, of course, accepted
without hesitation. Then I remarked that the statutes of the academy
permitted of persons who were not members being invited to serve on a
committee, and as the Naval Observatory would naturally take a leading
part in such observations as were to be made, I suggested that its
superintendent, Admiral Sands, should be invited to serve as a member
of the committee. "There," said Peirce, "we now have three names.
Committees of three are always the most efficient. Why go farther?"

I suggested that the committee should have on it some one practiced
in astronomical observation, but he deemed this entirely unnecessary,
and so the committee of three was formed. I did not deem it advisable
to make any opposition at the time, because it was