HISTORY
OF
THE HARVARD COLLEGE OBSERVATORY.
1840–1890.
The present is the semi-centennial year of the Harvard College Observatory. A precise date cannot be named for the beginning, but in the early months of the year 1840 the institution was gradually organized, and before midsummer became a tangible fact and a working adjunct of the college.
While the first astronomical observation is of record Dec. 31, 1839, it is well known that the observatory had not then an official staff, the appointment of the first director being of date Feb. 12, 1840, and the confirmation by the Board of Overseers somewhat later. Moreover, this particular observation and others immediately following were made in continuation of work begun elsewhere and not identified with the college affairs.
The advance made in astronomical science during the 50 years past is among the wonderful facts comprised in the record of the 19th century, and it is true that since it became fairly organized and equipped, Harvard College Observatory has been in the front rank in the march. A review of this progress so far as pertaining to the institution at Cambridge, is, therefore, timely. A history of 50 years, embodying so many facts of the first importance and interest as does this, cannot, even with the most resolute purpose as respects brevity, be disposed of in a single chapter. This, accordingly, will be the first of a series. The reader may be assured at the outset that the topics to be touched upon are various and in themselves attractive, and that, so far as possible, technicalities will be shunned.
Regarding the period of beginning just referred to as the blossoming, whence has followed abundant fruitage, it may be remarked that a long time passed between the budding and the blossoming, and that indications of the flow of a vital current are recognizable at as remote a date as 1761. In that year the sloop owned by the province of Massachusetts was fitted out at public cost to convey Prof. John Winthrop and others connected with the college, provided with instruments belonging to the college, to Newfoundland, for observation of a transit of Venus. In 1780, notwithstanding the financial straits incident to the war, the commonwealth provided a small vessel of war, called a “galley,” to take Prof. Samuel Williams, of the college, and party to Penobscot to observe a total eclipse of the sun. The first definite record pointing to a college observatory is of date 1805, when John Lowell, the uncle of that John Lowell who founded the Lowell Institute, being in Paris, consulted with Delambre, an astronomer of note, and procured from him written instructions as to suitable buildings and instruments for an observatory. This document was sent to the college authorities at Cambridge. No official action followed. The next of record is that the college authorities in 1815 appointed a committee to consider and report upon an eligible plan for an observatory. This is supposed to have been the first corporate action taken in the United States, having such an object in view. The doings of this committee are notable in two particulars, at least. They brought into official relations with the college for the first time, the man who was destined to be the builder and organizer of the observatory, 25 years later, William Cranch Bond.
He was about to visit Europe and was appointed the agent of the college to obtain information as to the construction and instrumental equipment of the observatory at Greenwich, and to make such plans, drawings, etc., as would enable him or another to construct an astronomical observatory at Cambridge; also to ascertain from the makers the cost of certain principal instruments like those at Greenwich. He performed the service and reported in detail in the following year. That nothing practical came of it for a quarter of a century was not owing to the will, but comparatively speaking, to the poverty of the college.
This result followed, however,—and it may be reckoned the second notable circumstance—that, upon his return, Mr. Bond constructed the model of an astronomical dome, the operative plan of which was the same as that of the great dome, built in 1844, and which has been in satisfactory use at Cambridge to the present time. The chief peculiarity of its mechanism is in the method of rotation by means of smoothly-turned spheres of iron. The dome rests on these at equi-distant points, and, being set in motion by suitable gearing, the iron balls sustaining its weight roll along a level circular track of iron, the circumference of which is equal to that of the dome. The method was unlike that previously in use. It appears to have been original with Mr. Bond, as is perhaps evinced by a remark in his report for 1848 referring to the matter: “If carefully examined, it will be found that this arrangement is as perfect in theory as it is appropriate and convenient in practice.” Experience has shown that spheres of hard bronze are more serviceable than those of iron, and bronze is now used.
