Year: 1876

, The following extracts from Professor Draper's lecture summarizes some of the achievements of the United States in the way of science We have sent out ex- petitions of exploration both to the Arctic and Antarctic seas. We have submitted our own coast to hydro graphic and geodesic survey not ex- celled in exactness and extent by any similar works elsewhere. In the ac- complishment of this we have been com pelled to solve many physical problems of the greatest d. icacy and highest inn portance, and we have done it success fully. The measuring rods with which the three great base lines of Maine, Long Island and Georgia were de- termined, and their beautiful mechani- cal appliances, have exacted the publicly expressed admiration of some of the greatest European philosophers and the conduct of that survey their instituted 1 applause. We have instituted geologi- cal surveys of many of our States and much of our Territories, and have been rewarded not merely by manifold local benefits, but also by the higher honor of extending very greatly the boundaries of that noble science. At an enormous annual cost we have maintained a meteorological signal system which I think is not equaled, and certainly is not surpassed, in the world. Should it be said that selfish interests have been mixed up with some of these under takings, we may demand whether there was any selfshness in the survey of the Dead sea? Was there any selfshness in that mission that a citizen of New York sent to equatorial Africa for the finding and relief of Livingstcn ne, any in the astronomical expedition to South America, any in that to tho valley of the Amazon8 Was there any'in the send ing out of parties for the observation of the total eclipse of the sun9 It was by American astronomers that the true character of his corona was first de- termined. Was there any in the seven expeditions that were dispatched for ob- serving the transit of Venus2 Was it not here that the bi-partition of Biela's comet was first detected, here that the eighth satellite of Saturn was discovered, here that the dusky ring of that planet, which had escaped the penetrating eye of Herschel and all the great European astronomers, was first seen9 Was it not by an American telescope that the com panion of Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens, WAS revealed and the mathe

 nautical prediction of the cause of his perturbations verifeda Was it not by Q Yale College professor that the showers of shooting stars were first scientifically discussed, on the occasion of that meteoric phenomenon in 18332 Did we not join in the investigations respecting terrestrial magnetism instituted by Euro

 peau governments at the suggestion of Humboldt, and contributs our quota to the results obtained9 Did not tho Con gross of the United States vote money grant to carry into effect the invention of the electric telegraph? Does not the published flora of the United States show that something has been done in botanyR Have not very important in- vestions been made here on the induc- tion of magnetism ill iron, the effect of magnetic currents on one another, the translation of quality into intensity and the conversea Was it not here that the radiatiops of incadescence were first in vestigated, the connection of increasing temperature with increasing refrangi'

 bility shown, the distribution of light, heat and chemical activity in the solar spectrum ascertained and some of tho fundamental facts in spectrum analysis develop,d d long before general attention was given to that subject in Europe 3 Here the first photograph of tho moon was taken, here the first of the diffrac- tion spectrums was produced, here the first portraits of the human face were made-an experiment. that has given rise to an important industrial art