The following statistics may be interesting to some of our readers: In 1806, the number of seamen authorized by law was 925, to which number 3,600 were added in 1809. In 1812, Congress authorized the President to employ as many as would be necessary to equip the vessels to be put in service, and to build as many vessels for the lakes as the public service required. In January, 1814, there were in actual service seven frigates, two corvettes, seven sloops-of-war, two block-ships, four brigs, and three schooners, for sea, besides the several lake-squadrons, gunboats, and harbor-barges, three ships-of-the-line, and three frigates on the stocks. The whole number of men and officers employed was 13,339, of which 3,729 were able seamen, and 6,721 ordinary. The marine corps, as enlarged in 1814, was 2,700 men and officers. The commissioned naval officers combatant were 22 captains, 18 commanders, 107 lieutenants, 450 midshipmen.
In 1814, Secretary Jones reported to the Senate that there were three 74-gun and three 44-gun ships building, six new sloops-of-war built, twenty barges and one hundred and twenty gun-boats employed in the Atlantic waters, thirty-three vessels of all sizes for sea, afloat or building, and thirty-one on the lakes. Even in 1813, the energy of this department had led the first Napoleon to issue the following instructions to his Minister of Marine:
“You will receive a decree by which I order the building, at Toulon, at Rochefort, and at Cherburg, of a frigate of American construction. I am certain that the English have had built a considerable number of frigates on that model. They go better, and they adopt them; we must not be behindhand. Those which you will have built at Toulon, at Rochefort, and at Cherburg, will manœuvre in the roads, and give us to understand what to think of the model.”
Since then, in defence of the nation, the American Navy has won victories which placed it in the front rank of the navies of the world. Mobile, with the names of Foote, Terry, Porter and Farragut, do not pale before any victories or names of earth.
A soft midsummer night, we stood upon the roof of the United States Observatory. Beneath us was Braddock’s Hill, where, generations gone, the young surveyor dreamed; and stretching far on to its guardian Capitol, the city which he foresaw—a verity now—its myriad lights twinkling through the misty distance. To our right was Georgetown; beyond Arlington Heights, and House; before us the Potomac, winding on to Alexandria; above us the fathomless heavens, the waxing moon and silent stars. Professor Harkness moved an axle; the great revolving dome turned round and parted; the great telescope was pointed to the opening, and the broad seam of sky visible between. We mounted the perch, and there were the mountains in the moon! their jagged edges, their yawning craters, yet only for a moment; for earth and moon are swift travellers. In a moment Madame Moon had outstripped our point of vision, and we had to pursue her.
Just before us was the unfinished dome of another observatory, wherein will soon be placed the largest telescope in the world. Beside us two other open domes, and upward pointed telescopes, told of other star-gazers below. We descended. There, in a dimly-lighted room, stood a solitary man peering through a telescope, its divining face uplifted to the narrow field of stars visible through the open dome. Hush! An observation! The solitary man whose face we now see is aged, and his hair white, with swift and silent step turns from his telescope to his desk, to make his mathematical notes.
“He need not do this unless he chooses,” says Professor H. “He was long ago promoted above this work. But a man who has formed a passion for star-gazing and observation never gets over it.” The room was dim and silent enough to have been given up to the presence of death. One felt as if some momentous operation were going on. The stars and the star-gazer both were felt. I shrank silent, into a corner, till that horoscope was cast, and the path of that far-away world measured to its minutest fraction. In the opposite wing we found another star-gazer. Was he gazing for pastime? Not at all. He was gazing for the Government and the sake of science.
Thus, while the nation sleeps, its servants keep watch not only of the weather, but of remotest worlds.
The chronometers belonging to the Government are kept in a room set apart for that purpose. These instruments are purchased by the Navy Department, with the understanding that they are to be tested in the Observatory for one year. They are placed in the chronometer room, and are carefully wound and regulated. They are examined daily, and compared with the great Astronomical Clock of the Observatory, and an accurate record of the movements of each one is kept in a book prepared for that purpose.
The temperature of the room is also examined daily, and recorded. These minute records enable the officers of the Observatory to point out the exact fault of each imperfect chronometer. Thanks to this, the maker is enabled to remedy the defect, and the instrument is made perfect. At the end of the year, the instruments found to be unsatisfactory are returned to their makers, and those which pass the test are paid for. The returned instruments are usually overhauled by the makers, and the defects remedied. They are then sent back for a trial of another year, at the end of which time they rarely fail to pass.