The Reminiscences of an Astronomer Part 12

In England the preparations were left mostly in the hands of Professor Airy, Astronomer Royal, and, I believe, Captain Tupman, who at least took a leading part in the observations and their subsequent reduction. In France, Germany, and Russia, commissions were appointed to take charge of the work and plan the observations.

As cooperation among the parties from different countries would be generally helpful, I accepted an invitation to attend a meeting of the German commission, to be held at Hanover in August, 1873. Hansen was president of the commission, while Auwers was its executive officer.

One of my main objects was to point out the impossibility of obtaining any valuable result by the system of photographing which had been proposed, but I was informed, in reply, that the preparations had advanced too far to admit of starting on a new plan and putting it in operation.

From the beginning of our preparations it began to be a question of getting from Congress the large appropriations necessary for sending out the expeditions and fitting them up with instruments.

The sum of $50,000 was wanted for instruments and outfit. Hon. James A. Garfield was then chairman of the committee on appropriations.

His principles and methods of arranging appropriations for the government were, in some features, so different from those generally in vogue that it will be of interest to describe them.

First of all, Garfield was rigidly economical in grants of money.

This characteristic of a chairman of a committee on appropriations was almost a necessary one. But he possessed it in a different way from any other chairman before or since. The method of the "watch dogs of the treasury" who sometimes held this position was to grant most of the objects asked for, but to cut down the estimated amounts by one fourth or one third. This was a very easy method, and one well fitted to impress the public, but it was one that the executive officers of the government found no difficulty in evading, by the very simple process of increasing their estimate so as to allow for the prospective reduction. [2]

Garfield compared this system to ordering cloth for a coat, but economizing by reducing the quant.i.ty put into it. If a new proposition came before him, the question was whether it was advisable for the government to entertain it at all. He had to be thoroughly convinced before this would be done. If the question was decided favorably all the funds necessary for the project were voted.

When the proposition for the transit of Venus came before him, he proceeded in a manner which I never heard of the chairman of an appropriation committee adopting before or since. Instead of calling upon those who made the proposition to appear formally before the committee, he asked me to dinner with his family, where we could talk the matter over. One other guest was present, Judge Black of Pennsylvania. He was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, wielding as caustic a pen as was ever dipped into ink, but was, withal, a firm personal friend and admirer of Garfield. As may readily be supposed, the transit of Venus did not occupy much time at the table.

I should not have been an enthusiastic advocate of the case against opposition, in any case, because my hopes of measuring the sun's distance satisfactorily by that method were not at all sanguine.

My main interest lay in the fact that, apart from this, the transit would afford valuable astronomical data for the life work which I had mainly in view. So the main basis of my argument was that other nations were going to send out parties; that we should undoubtedly do the same, and that they must be equipped and organized in the best way.

It appears that Judge Black was an absent-minded man, as any man engaged in thought on very great subjects, whether of science, jurisprudence, or politics, has the right to be. Garfield asked him whether it was true that, on one occasion, when preparing an argument, and walking up and down the room, his hat chanced to drop on the floor at one end of the room, and was persistently used as a cuspidor until the argument was completed. Mr. Black neither affirmed nor denied the story, but told another which he said was true. While on his circuit as judge he had, on one occasion, tried a case of theft in which the princ.i.p.al evidence against the accused was the finding of the stolen article in his possession. He charged the jury that this fact was _prima facie_ evidence that the man was actually the thief.

When through his business and about to leave for home, he went into a jeweler's shop to purchase some little trinket for his wife.

The jeweler showed him a number of little articles, but finding none to suit him, he stepped into his carriage and drove off. In the course of the day he called on a street urchin to water his horse.

Reaching into his pocket for a reward, the first thing he got hold of was a diamond ring which must have been taken from the shop of the jeweler when he left that morning. "I wondered," said the judge, "how I should have come out had I been tried under my own law."

The outcome of the matter was that the appropriations were duly made; first, in 1872, $50,000 for instruments, then, the year following, $100,000 for the expeditions. In 1874, $25,000 more was appropriated to complete the work and return the parties to their homes.

The date of the great event was December 8-9, 1874. To have the parties thoroughly drilled in their work, they were brought together at Washington in the preceding spring for practice and rehearsal.

In order that the observations to be made by the eye should not be wholly new, an apparatus representing the transit was mounted on the top of Winder's building, near the War Department, about two thirds of a mile from the observatory. When this was observed through the telescope from the roof of the observatory, an artificial black Venus was seen impinging upon an artificial sun, and entering upon its disk in the same way that the actual Venus would be seen.

This was observed over and over until, as was supposed, the observers had gotten into good practice.

In order to insure the full understanding of the photographic apparatus, the instruments were mounted and the parties practiced setting them up and going through the processes of photographing the sun. To carry out this arrangement with success, it was advisable to have an expert in astronomical photography to take charge of the work.

Dr. Henry Draper of New York was invited for this purpose, and gave his services to the commission for several weeks.

This transit was not visible in the United States. It did not begin until after the sun had set in San Francisco, and it was over before the rising sun next morning had reached western Europe. All the parties had therefore to be sent to the other side of the globe.

Three northern stations were occupied,--in China, j.a.pan, and Siberia; and five southern ones, at various points on the islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans. This unequal division was suggested by the fact that the chances of fair weather were much less in the southern hemisphere than in the northern.

The southern parties were taken to their destinations in the U. S. S. Swatara, Captain Ralph Chandler, U. S. N., commanding.

In astronomical observations all work is at the mercy of the elements.

Clear weather was, of course, a necessity to success at any station.

In the present case the weather was on the whole unpropitious.

While there was not a complete failure at any one station, the number or value of the observations was more or less impaired at all.

Where the sky was nearly cloudless, the air was thick and hazy.

This was especially the case at Nagasaki and Pekin, where from meteorological observations which the commission had collected through our consuls, the best of weather was confidently expected. What made this result more tantalizing was that the very pains we had taken to collect the data proved, by chance, to have made the choice worse.

For some time it was deliberated whether the j.a.panese station should be in Nagasaki or Yokohama. Consultation with the best authorities and a study of the records showed that, while Yokohama was a favorable spot, the chances were somewhat better at Nagasaki. So to Nagasaki the party was sent. But when the transit came, while the sky was of the best at Yokohama, it was far from being so at Nagasaki.

Something of the same sort occurred at the most stormy of all the southern stations, that at Kerguelen Island. The British expeditions had, in the beginning, selected a station on this island known as Christmas Harbor. We learned that a firm of New London, Conn., had a whaling station on the island. It was therefore applied to to know what the weather chances were at various points in the island.

Information was obtained from their men, and it was thus found that Molloy Point, bad though the weather there was, afforded better chances than Christmas Harbor; so it was chosen. But this was not all; the British parties, either in consequence of the information we had acquired, or through what was learned from the voyage of the Challenger, established their princ.i.p.al station near ours. But it happened that the day at Christmas Harbor was excellent, while the observations were greatly interfered with by pa.s.sing clouds at Molloy Point.

After the return of the parties sent out by the various nations, it did not take long for the astronomers to find that the result was disappointing, so far, at least, as the determination of the sun's distance was concerned. It became quite clear that this important element could be better measured by determining the velocity of light and the time which it took to reach us from the sun than it could by any transit of Venus. It was therefore a question whether parties should be sent out to observe the transit of 1882. On this subject the astronomers of the country at large were consulted.

As might have been expected, there was a large majority in favor of the proposition. The negative voices were only two in number, those of Pickering and myself. I took the ground that we should make ample provisions for observing it at various stations in our own country, where it would now be visible, but that, in view of the certain failure to get a valuable result for the distance of the sun by this method, it was not worth while for us to send parties to distant parts of the world. I supposed the committee on appropriations might make careful inquiry into the subject before making the appropriation, but a representation of the case was all they asked for, and $10,000 was voted for improving the instruments and $75,000 for sending out parties.

Expeditions being thus decided upon, I volunteered to take charge of that to the Cape of Good Hope. The scientific personnel of my party comprised an officer of the army engineers, one of the navy, and a photographer. The former were Lieutenant Thomas L. Casey, Jr., Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., and Lieutenant J. H. L. Holcombe, U. S. N.

We took a Cunard steamer for Liverpool about the middle of September, 1882, and transported our instruments by rail to Southampton, there to have them put on the Cape steamship. At Liverpool I was guilty of a remissness which might have caused much trouble. Our apparatus and supplies, in a large number of boxes, were all gathered and piled in one place. I sent one of my a.s.sistants to the point to see that it was so collected that there should be no possibility of mistake in getting it into the freight car designed to carry it to Southampton, but did not require him to stay there and see that all was put on board. When the cases reached Southampton it was found that one was missing. It was one of the heaviest of the lot, containing the cast-iron pier on which the photoheliograph was to be mounted. While it was possible to replace this by something else, such a course would have been inconvenient and perhaps prejudicial.

The steamer was about to sail, but would touch at Plymouth next day.

Only one resource was possible. I telegraphed the mistake to Liverpool and asked that the missing box be sent immediately by express to Plymouth. We had the satisfaction of seeing it come on board with the mail just as the steamer was about to set sail.

We touched first at Madeira, and then at Ascension Island, the latter during the night. One of the odd things in nomenclature is that this island, a British naval station, was not called such officially, but was a "tender to Her Majesty's ship Flora," I believe. It had become astronomically famous a few years before by Gill's observations of the position of Mars to determine the solar parallax.

We touched six hours at St. Helena, enough to see the place, but scarcely enough to make a visit to the residence of Napoleon, even had we desired to see it. The little town is beautifully situated, and the rocks around are very imposing. My most vivid recollection is, however, of running down from the top of a rock some six hundred or eight hundred feet high, by a steep flight of steps, without stopping, or rather of the consequences of this imprudent gymnastic performance.

I could scarcely move for the next three days.

Cape Town was then suffering from an epidemic of smallpox, mostly confined to the Malay population, but causing some disagreeable results to travelers. Our line of ships did not terminate their voyage at the Cape, but proceeded thence to other African ports east of the Cape. Here a rigid quarantine had been established, and it was necessary that the ships touching at the Cape of Good Hope should have had no communication with the sh.o.r.e. Thus it happened that we found, lying in the harbor, the ship of our line which had preceded us, waiting to get supplies from us, in order that it might proceed on its voyage. Looking at a row-boat after we had cast anchor, we were delighted to see two faces which I well knew: those of David Gill, astronomer of the Cape Observatory, and Dr. W. L. Elkin, now director of the Yale Observatory. The latter had gone to the Cape as a volunteer observer with Gill, their work being directed mostly to parallaxes of stars too far south to be well observed in our lat.i.tude.

Our friends were not, however, even allowed to approach the ship, for fear of the smallpox, the idea appearing to be that the latter might be communicated by a sort of electric conduction, if the boat and the ship were allowed to come into contact, so we had to be put ash.o.r.e without their aid.

We selected as our station the little town of Wellington, some forty miles northeast of Cape Town. The weather chances were excellent anywhere, but here they were even better than at the Cape. The most interesting feature of the place was what we might call an American young ladies' school. The Dutch inhabitants of South Africa are imbued with admiration of our inst.i.tutions, and one of their dreams is said to be a United States of South Africa modeled after our own republic. Desiring to give their daughters the best education possible, they secured the services of Miss Ferguson, a well-known New England teacher, to found a school on the American model.

We established our station in the grounds of this school.

The sky on the day of the transit was simply perfect. Notwithstanding the intensity of the sun's rays, the atmosphere was so steady that I have never seen the sun to better advantage. So all our observations were successful.

On our departure we left two iron pillars, on which our apparatus for photographing the sun was mounted, firmly imbedded in the ground, as we had used them. Whether they will remain there until the transit of 2004, I do not know, but cannot help entertaining a sentimental wish that, when the time of that transit arrives, the phenomenon will be observed from the same station, and the pillars be found in such a condition that they can again be used.

All the governments, except our own, which observed the two transits of Venus on a large scale long ago completed the work of reduction, and published the observations in full. On our own part we have published a preliminary discussion of some observations of the transit of 1874. Of that of 1882 nothing has, I believe, been published except some brief statements of results of the photographs, which appeared in an annual report of the Naval Observatory. Having need in my tables of the planets of the best value of the solar parallax that could be obtained by every method, I worked up all the observations of contacts made by the parties of every country, but, of course, did not publish our own observations. Up to the present time, twenty-eight years after the first of the transits, and twenty years after the second, our observations have never been officially published except to the extent I have stated. The importance of the matter may be judged by the fact that the government expended $375,000 on these observations, not counting the salaries of its officers engaged in the work, or the cost of sailing a naval ship.

As I was a member of the commission charged with the work, and must therefore bear my full share of the responsibility for this failure, I think it proper to state briefly how it happened, hoping thereby to enforce the urgent need of a better organization of some of our scientific work.

The work of reducing such observations, editing and preparing them for the press, involved much computation to be done by a.s.sistants, and I, being secretary of the commission, was charged with the execution of this part of the work. The appropriations made by Congress for the observations were considered available for the reduction also.

There was a small balance left over, and I estimated that $3000 more would suffice to complete the work. This was obtained from Congress in the winter of 1875.

About the end of 1876 I was surprised to receive from the Treasury Department a notification that the appropriation for the transit of Venus was almost exhausted, when according to my accounts, more than $3000 still remained. On inquiry it was found that the sum appropriated about two years before had never been placed to the credit of the transit of Venus commission, having been, in fact, inserted in a different appropriation bill from that which contained the former grant.

I, as secretary of the commission, made an application to the Treasury Department to have the sum, late though it was, placed to our credit.

But the money had been expended and nothing could be now done in the matter. [3] The computers had therefore to be discharged and the work stopped until a new appropriation could be obtained from Congress.

During the session of 1876-77, $5000 was therefore asked for for the reduction of the observations. It was refused by the House committee on appropriations. I explained the matter to Mr. Julius H. Seelye, formerly president of Amherst College, who was serving a term in Congress. He took much interest in the subject, and moved the insertion of the item when the appropriation bill came up before the House. Mr. Atkins, chairman of the appropriations committee, opposed the motion, maintaining that the Navy Department had under its orders plenty of officers who could do the work, so there was no need of employing the help of computers. But the House took a different view, and inserted the item over the heads of the appropriations committee.

Now difficulties incident to the divided responsibility of the commission were met with. During the interim between the death of Admiral Davis, in February, 1877, and the coming of Admiral John Rodgers as his successor, a legal question arose as to the power of the commission over its members. The work had to stop until it was settled, and I had to discharge my computers a second time.

After it was again started I discovered that I did not have complete control of the funds appropriated for reducing the observations.

The result was that the computers had to be discharged and the work stopped for the third time. This occurred not long before I started out to observe the transit in 1882. For me the third hair was the one that broke the camel's back. I turned the papers and work over to Professor Harkness, by whom the subject was continued until he was made astronomical director of the Naval Observatory in 1894.

I do not know that the commission was ever formally dissolved.

Practically, however, its functions may be said to have terminated in the year 1886, when a provision of law was enacted by which all its property was turned over to the Secretary of the Navy.

What the present condition of the work may be, and how much of it is ready for the press, I cannot say. My impression is that it is in that condition known in household language as "all done but finishing." Whether it will ever appear is a question for the future.

All the men who took part in it or who understood its details are either dead or on the retired list, and it is difficult for one not familiar with it from the beginning to carry it to completion.

[1] For the incidents connected with the English observations of this transit, the author is indebted to Vice-Admiral W. H. Smyth's curious and rare book, _Speculum Hartwellianum_, London, 1860.

It and other works of the same author may be described as queer and interesting jumbles of astronomical and other information, thrown into an interesting form; and, in the case of the present work, spread through a finely ill.u.s.trated quarto volume of nearly five hundred pages.

[2] "The War Department got ahead of us in the matter of furniture,"

said an officer of the Navy Department to me long afterwards, when the furniture for the new department building was being obtained.

"They knew enough to ask for a third more than they wanted; we reduced our estimate to the lowest point. Both estimates were reduced one third by the Appropriations Committee. The result is that they have all the furniture they want, while we are greatly pinched."