The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1849-05-31

ASTRONOMICAL EXPEDITION TO CHILI-Amer-
icdn 1eiesc0peS.--We learn from the National In
telligencer that The outfit of the expedition, for
which Congress made liberal appropriation, for
series of astronomical observations in the South
ern- Hemisphere, is in rapid progress, and its pro-
Jector, Lieut. Giliss, and his assistants will embark
for Chill in the course of few weeks The pur-
pose of This expedition is a new determination of
the parallax OF the planets, and consequently of
their distance from the Sun, by simultaneous OBJ
servations on the planets Venus and Mars, made at
situations north and south of the Equator At the
instance of the Smithsonian Institution Also Lieut.
Glss is to give attention TO that most mysterious
and interesting phenomena Of terrestrial physics,
the earthquake and pseismome,er, or instrument
tor measuring the intensity and direction of the
edrthUdoe has been ordered, at the expense of the
institution. The preparations for this expedition,
we are glad to observe, have led to a new triumph
OF American art, in the manufacture of telescopes.
The amount (S5OOO) first appropriated by Congress
not being sufficient To provide all the aids which
the latest improvements in modern science could
furnish, the Smithsonian Institution undertook to
procure and loan to Lieut.. Glliss an achromatic
telescope; to pay for which, however, Congress
subsequently, made an additional appropriation
The lnelllgencer thus relates how this triumph in
American art, above referred to, was brought about:
Several importers of instruments positively re-
fused to touch the order unless at an advance be-
yOnd total costs altogether unreasonable, and Mr..
Merz, the successor to Frausnhofer, wrote that it
was absolutely impossible to make nine feet equa-
terial by the 10Th of April. In this difficulty Mr..
Henry Firz, of New York, volunteered to make an
object-glass, from Guinand's disces, of the same
dimensions as the somewhat celebrated lens from
Frauenhofer's establishment at the High School
Observatory in Philadelphia, viz 81 inches clear
aperture and nine feet focal length, which should
be compared side by side with that object glass by
the keenest-eyed astronomers of Philadelphia, and
if it proved equal to it in performance, he should
charge for 1t only the cost Of similar lens at Mu
nich about $780, otherwise the Smithsonian In
stitnon should have The use of it, free of CHARGE
until another could be procured from Germany.
And Mr.. VIM. S. Young, of Philadelphia having
already made two equatorial stands of the same
size, guaranteed to furnish the mounting within
the period stated
Lieut.. Gilliss gave the ORDER and the verdict of
the astronomical umpires in a letter of May LIST,
from +. Otis Kendall, Director of the High School
Observatory, is to the following effect:
8 1t is my opinion that Mr. Fiiz has fully accom-
plislied all he undertook to perform. From this
trial am unable to pronounce which is the better
glass-the Franenhofer doing nothing which was
not equally we'll done by the Fitz glass.
Between this and one you might order from Merz,
the chances would be decidedly in favor of the
former