mily to take Maria's
place in the home; and when Miss Mitchell returned she found her mother
so nearly in the state in which she had left her, that she felt
justified in having taken the journey.

Mrs. Mitchell died in 1861, and a few months after her death Mr.
Mitchell and his daughter removed to Lynn, Mass.--Miss Mitchell having
purchased a small house in that city, in the rear of which she erected
the little observatory brought from Nantucket. She was very much
depressed by her mother's death, and absorbed herself as much as
possible in her observations and in her work for the Nautical Almanac.

Soon after her return from Europe she had been presented with an
equatorial telescope, the gift of American women, through Miss Elizabeth
Peabody. The following letter refers to this instrument:

LETTER FROM ADMIRAL SMYTH.

ST. JOHN'S LODGE, NEAR AYLESBURY, 25-7-'59.

MY DEAR MISS MITCHELL: ... We are much pleased to hear of your
acquisition of an equatorial instrument under a revolving roof,
for it is a true scientific luxury as well as an efficient
implement. The aperture of your object-glass is sufficient for
doing much useful work, but, if I may hazard an opinion to you,
do not attempt too much, for it is quality rather than quantity
which is now desirable. I would therefore leave the
multiplication of objects to the larger order of telescopes, and
to those who are given to sweep and ransack the heavens, of whom
there is a goodly corps. Now, for your purpose, I would
recommend a batch of neat, but not over-close, binary systems,
selected so as to have always one or the other on hand.

I, however, have been bestirring myself to put amateurs upon a
more convenient and, I think, a better mode of examining double
stars than by the wire micrometer, with its faults of
illumination, fiddling, jumps, and dirty lamps. This is by the
beautiful method of rock-crystal prisms, not the Rochon method
of double-image, but by thin wedges cut to given angles. I have
told Mr. Alvan Clark my "experiences." and I hope he will apply
his excellent mind to the scheme. I am insisting upon this point
in some astronomical twaddle which I am now printing, and of
which I shall soon have to request your acceptance of a copy.

There is a very important department which calls for a zealous
amateur or two, namely, the colors of double stars, fo