Arizona weekly enterprise., 1888-09-01
Previous to the year 1s42


 Previous to the year 1842 there was no observatory in the United States built and equipped on the scale of those in Europe. The largest telescope in America was at the Philadelphia high school, it's focal length being only eight feet. There were a few such instruments in different places. and some of their receptacles wers called observatories, but no regularly built and equipped observatory existed within the limits of the United States up to the date named.
 The first real observatory in America furnished with first class instruments was built by subscription. O. NJ. Mitchell, a professor in 8 small college at Cincinnati Afterwards general in the Union army) while lecturing on astronomy. became in terested, and succeeded in deeply inter esting others in this abstruse science. He framed Q resolution to build by subscrip- tion Organizing a stock association, the shares of which he placed at a par value of $25) an observatory like those then in use abroad, and to furnish it with firse class instruments The result of his efforts was the first of our great observa- i tories. The old Cincinnati observatory l has since been abandoned and Q building placed i1 another location in the sans city; but the equatorial brought ever from Europe by Mitchell, in 1S45, is still in use in the new building. The object ! glass of this telescope. which was a re- tractor, as are all our telescopes in this country. is l2 inches in diameter.
 The impetus given by Mitelel gave rise to a number of obseryatories, one of which, the Naval observatory at Wash ington. instituted by the United States government as a depot for charts and instruments" followed very soon after. As early as 1898, Lieut.. Gillis, Of the navy, used a little transit and began to make a number of observations. h 1914 Cliffs, who had charge of the work of building the naval observatory which had been authorized by congress simply as a repository of instruments, from the fact that an observatory would meet with ridicule in that unenlightened day, com pleted the central portion of the building. But it was not till some time after that the equatorial was mounted. Other gov ernment observatories, those at West Point and Annapolis soon followed.
 John Quincy Adams had, in 1895, tried to induce the government to erect an observatory, but his proposition had only met with contempt. He took an interest, however, in an embryo observatory in O3nDftdGG, ana OoIlVefeQ the OfaUlOn al the laying of the corner stone of the one at Cincinnati. The Cambridge building was completed in 1S44, but the refractoI to be placed in it did not arrive till 1847 Professor w c. Bond was it's director. Mitchell, at Cincinnati; Gillis, at Wash l ington and Bond, at Cambridge, were the first three directors of observatories ir } the United States.
 The observatory at Dartmouth college came next, but this was not till 1853 The citizens of Albany. \. Y, had mean while made a move to establish an observ atory in that city, and Mrs. Blandini Dudley had signiied willingness to give the means. provided the institution coulC be made memorial to her deceased bus band and named for him. In 1851 Pro lessor Mitchell, having been persuaded tC take an interest in it, drew the plans; th' structure was erected, the instrument. " were procured, and in 1860 Mitchell ac cepted tho directorship. Hamilton col 3 lege. Ann Arbor and Yale followed a l intervals, and within twenty years afte the arrival of the Cincinnati refractor number of first class observatories ant many fine instruments were in operation in different parts of the United States.