MAIN OBSERVATORY BUILDING, SHOWING THE DIRECTOR’S RESIDENCE AND THE GREAT DOME.
Many interesting particulars of the early days of Harvard College observatory are given in the first volume of printed annals of the institution. In the reading an essential fact is to be kept in mind, the difference of the pecuniary standards of that and the present time. The writer of an official document of 1843, was, in view of that difference, neither inexact nor ironical when he characterized a conditional offer of $5000 for the observatory, made that year by Hon. David Sears, as “a munificent proposal.” It was soon found that the Dana house site would serve only temporarily, and on Sept. 4, 1841, action was taken for the building of a permanent observatory. Soon afterwards the present observatory grounds, then known as “Summer House hill,” were bought.
Up to this time astronomical work had been carried on at the Dana house to the extent possible with the few instruments of precision at command, much of it by Mr. W. C. Bond, Jr., whose decease, in 1842, was regarded a loss to science. The contract of the senior Mr. Bond with the United States government ended in 1842, and in July of that year a movement was made having in view the purchase of a first-class telescope, but it was a matter of inquiry as to cost, etc., only. Under ordinary circumstances what was thus sought for, a proper observatory building and a telescope equal to the more difficult problems of astronomy, would have been slowly arrived at.
But early in March, 1843, the great comet of that year suddenly appeared in the evening sky, near to the sun. It was an astonishing phenomenon, and wrought the popular as well as the scientific mind into a state of excitement.
The comet had passed perihelion on Feb. 27, and was seen at one place in New England on the 28th, close to the sun. During its brightest period it was visible in the daytime at one place in this section of the country from 7.30 A.M. to 3 P.M., when clouds intervened; and in Mexico from 9 A.M. till sunset. It passed but about 90,000 miles from the sun’s surface and through more than 300,000 miles of the sun’s corona, its velocity then being 350 miles per second. Its head was small, but its tail large and brilliant. The total light emitted by the meteor is stated by Prof. Loomis to have been equal to that of the moon at midnight in a clear sky. By the telescope its tail could be traced over a computed distance of 108,000,000 miles, so that had it been pointed towards the earth it would have passed through the planet’s atmosphere and 15,000,000 miles beyond.
The professor names as its notable characteristics “its small perihelion distance, nearly as small as is physically possible, and its prodigious length of tail.” It continued visible into the following month. It is known in the books as “the great comet of 1843,” but for reasons which will appear, it might well be called “the Harvard comet.” The friends of the young institution at Cambridge perceived that the moment was opportune for an appeal to the moneyed public. The prevalent curiosity as to the visitor could not be gratified by the observers at the Dana house.
They had no instruments fit for the occasion. An altitude-and-azimuth instrument, which had been used in the state survey of 1831, was borrowed and mounted in the cupola, and thus, on March 9, an observation was first made; but nothing came of the endeavor, it being found impossible to secure permanent adjustments. The next thing done was to call a meeting of citizens in Boston. The chairman was Hon. Abbot Lawrence. Addresses were made by Hon. John Pickering, Prof. Benjamin Peirce, Hon. William Appleton and Hon. S. A. Eliot. A financial committee was appointed, and subscriptions to the amount of $25,000 were obtained in Boston, Salem, New Bedford and Nantucket.
Thus encouraged, the official board of the college negotiated for the purchase of the best telescope that could be produced in Europe, a refractor of 15 inches aperture, equatorially mounted, the makers being Merz & Mahler of Munich. The spot for building a massive stone supporting pier on Summer House hill was fixed Aug. 12, 1843, and ground was broken for the work on Aug. 15.
These were the experiences which Prof. Benjamin Peirce had in mind when in later years he spoke in eulogy of Prof. Bond, then deceased, in phrase which is both of historical and biographical interest. Having mentioned some of the early difficulties, he said: “When, in 1839, Mr. Bond was drawn to Cambridge by the strong hand of President Quincy, when the cause of the observatory was undertaken by the unflinching and irresistible vigor of our friend J. Ingersoll Bowditch, when even the heavens came to our assistance, and that wonderful comet of 1843 excited most opportunely a universal interest in celestial phenomena,—it was then apparent that the affection for Mr. Bond was the chief strength of the occasion, and to that we were mainly indebted for the successful attempt to obtain the unrivalled equatorial and to lay the foundations of the observatory.” No proper biography of Mr. Bond, whose career was an honor to his country, has ever been published. A sketch, the facts for which have largely been derived from original sources, may fittingly be given as the next number in this series.