If the “Great Star-Catalogue Case” is not surrounded with such mystery as would entitle it to a place among causes célèbres, it may well be so classed on account of the novelty of the questions at issue. It affords an instructive example of the possibility of cases in which strict justice cannot be done through the established forms of legal procedure. It is also of scientific interest because, although the question was a novel one to come before a court, it belongs to a class which every leader in scientific investigation must constantly encounter in meting out due credit to his assistants.

The plaintiff, Christian H. F. Peters, was a Dane by birth, and graduated at the University of Berlin in 1836. During the earlier years of his manhood he was engaged in the trigonometrical survey of the kingdom of Naples, where, for a time, he had charge of an observatory or some other astronomical station. It is said that, like many other able European youth of the period, he was implicated in the revolution of 1848, and had to flee the kingdom in consequence. Five years later, he came to the United States. Here his first patron was Dr. B. A. Gould, who procured for him first a position on the Coast Survey, and then one as his assistant at the Dudley Observatory in Albany.

I date my birth into the world of sweetness and light on one frosty morning in January, 1857, when I took my seat between two well-known mathematicians, before a blazing fire in the office of the “Nautical Almanac” at Cambridge, Mass. I had come on from Washington, armed with letters from Professor Henry and Mr. Hilgard, to seek a trial as an astronomical computer. The men beside me were Professor Joseph Winlock, the superintendent, and Mr. John D. Runkle, the senior assistant in the office. I talked of my unsuccessful attempt to master the “Mécanique Céleste” of Laplace without other preparation than that afforded by the most meagre text-books of elementary mathematics of that period. Runkle spoke of the translator as “the Captain.” So familiar a designation of the great Bowditch — LL. D. and member of the Royal Societies of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin — quite shocked me.

I was then in my twenty-second year, but it was the first time I had ever seen any one who was familiar with the “Mécanique Céleste.” I looked with awe upon the assistants who filed in and out as upon men who had all the mysteries of gravitation and the celestial motions at their fingers' ends. I should not have been surprised to learn that even the Hibernian who fed the fire had imbibed so much of the spirit of the place as to admire the genius of Laplace and Lagrange.

We went from Gibraltar to Berlin in January by way of Italy. The Mediterranean is a charming sea in summer, but in winter is a good deal like the Atlantic. The cause of the blueness of its water is not completely settled; but its sharing this color with Lake Geneva, which is tinged with detritus from the shore, might lead one to ascribe it to substances held in solution. The color is noticeable even in the harbor of Malta, to which we had a pleasant though not very smooth passage of five days.

Here was our first experience of an Italian town of a generation ago. I had no sooner started to take a walk than a so-called guide, who spoke what he thought was English, got on my track, and insisted on showing me everything. If I started toward a shop, he ran in before me, invited me in, asked what I would like to buy, and told the shopman to show the gentleman something. I could not get rid of him till I returned to the hotel, and then he had the audacity to want a fee for his services. I do not think he got it. Everything of interest was easily seen, and we only stopped to take the first Italian steamer to Messina.

In the wonderful development of astronomical research in our country during the past twenty years, no feature is more remarkable than the rise on an isolated mountain in California of an institution which, within that brief period, has become one of the foremost observatories of the world. As everything connected with the early history of such an institution must be of interest, it may not be amiss if I devote a few pages to it.

In 1874 the announcement reached the public eye that James Lick, an eccentric and wealthy Californian, had given his entire fortune to a board of trustees to be used for certain public purposes, one of which was the procuring of the greatest and most powerful telescope that had ever been made. There was nothing in the previous history of the donor that could explain his interest in a great telescope. I am sure he had never looked through a telescope in his life, and that if he had, and had been acquainted with the difficulties of an observation with it, it is quite likely the Lick Observatory would never have existed. From his point of view, as, indeed, from that of the public very generally, the question of telescopic vision is merely one of magnifying power.

It was long supposed that transits of Venus over the sun's disk afforded the only accurate method of determining the distance of the sun, one of the fundamental data of astronomy. Unfortunately, these phenomena are of the rarest. They come in pairs, with an interval of eight years between the transits of a pair. A pair occurred in 1761 and 1769, and again in 1874 and 1882. Now the whole of the twentieth century will pass without another recurrence of the phenomenon. Not until the years 2004 and 2012 will our posterity have the opportunity of witnessing it.

Much interesting history is associated with the adventures of the astronomers who took part in the expeditions to observe the transits of 1761 and 1769. In the almost chronic warfare which used to rage between France and England during that period, neither side was willing to regard as neutral even a scientific expedition sent out by the other. The French sent one of their astronomers, Le Gentil, to observe the transit at Pondicherry in the East Indies. As he was nearing his station, the presence of the enemy prevented him from making port, and he was still at sea on the day of the transit. When he at length landed, he determined to remain until the transit of 1769, and observe that.

In August, 1861, while I was passing my vacation on Cape Ann, I received a letter from Dr. Gould, then in Washington, informing me that a vacancy was to be filled in the corps of professors of mathematics attached to the Naval Observatory, and suggesting that I might like the place. I was at first indisposed to consider the proposition. Cambridge was to me the focus of the science and learning of our country. I feared that, so far as the world of learning was concerned, I should be burying myself by moving to Washington. The drudgery of night work at the observatory would also interfere with carrying on any regular investigation. But, on second thought, having nothing in view at the time, and the position being one from which I could escape should it prove uncongenial, I decided to try, and indited the following letter:—

Nautical Almanac Office,

Cambridge, Mass., August 22, 1861.

Sir, — I have the honor to apply to you for my appointment to the office of Professor of Mathematics in the United States Navy.

I would respectfully refer you to Commander Charles Henry Davis, U. S. N., Professor Benjamin Peirce, of Harvard University, Dr. Benjamin A. Gould, of Cambridge, and Professor Joseph Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, for any information respecting me which will enable you to judge of the propriety of my appointment.

The term “Nautical Almanac” is an unfortunate misnomer for what is, properly speaking, the “Astronomical Ephemeris.” It is quite a large volume, from which the world draws all its knowledge of times and seasons, the motions of the heavenly bodies, the past and future positions of the stars and planets, eclipses, and celestial phenomena generally which admit of prediction. It is the basis on which the family almanac is to rest. It also contains the special data needed to enable the astronomer and navigator to determine their position on land or sea. The first British publication of the sort, prepared by Maskelyne, Astronomer Royal, a century ago, was intended especially for the use of navigators; hence the familiar appellation, which I call unfortunate because it leads to the impression that the work is simply an enlargement and improvement of the household almanac.

The leading nations publish ephemerides of this sort. The introductions and explanations are, of course, in the languages of the respective countries; but the contents of the volume are now so much alike that the duplication of work involved in preparing them seems quite unnecessary. Yet national pride and emulation will probably continue it for some time to come.

My first trip to Europe, mentioned in the last chapter, was made with my wife, when the oldest transatlantic line was still the fashionable one. The passenger on a Cunarder felt himself amply compensated for poor attendance, coarse food, and bad coffee by learning from the officers on the promenade deck how far the ships of their line were superior to all others in strength of hull, ability of captain, and discipline of crew. Things have changed on both sides since then. Although the Cunard line has completed its half century without having lost a passenger, other lines are also carefully navigated, and the Cunard passenger, so far as I know, fares as well as any other. Captain McMickan was as perfect a type of the old-fashioned captain of the best class as I ever saw. His face looked as if the gentlest zephyr that had ever fanned it was an Atlantic hurricane, and yet beamed with Hibernian good humor and friendliness. He read prayers so well on Sunday that a passenger assured him he was born to be a bishop. One day a ship of the North German Lloyd line was seen in the offing slowly gaining on us. A passenger called the captain's attention to the fact that we were being left behind.

A few features of Washington as it appeared during the civil war are indelibly fixed in my memory. An endless train of army wagons ploughed its streets with their heavy wheels. Almost the entire southwestern region, between the War Department and the Potomac, extending west on the river to the neighborhood of the observatory, was occupied by the Quartermaster's and Subsistence Departments for storehouses. Among these the astronomers had to walk by day and night, in going to and from their work. After a rain, especially during winter and spring, some of the streets were much like shallow canals. Under the attrition of the iron-bound wheels the water and clay were ground into mud, which was at first almost liquid. It grew thicker as it dried up, until perhaps another rainstorm reduced it once more to a liquid condition. In trying first one street and then another to see which offered the fewest obstacles to his passage, the wayfarer was reminded of the assurance given by a bright boy to a traveler who wanted to know the best road to a certain place: “Whichever road you take, before you get halfway there you 'll wish you had taken t' other.” By night swarms of rats, of a size proportional to their ample food supply, disputed the right of way with the pedestrian.