Page:A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury.pdf/64

50 surprise that Navy officers should be able to do such things. We have beaten Greenwich all hollow, there is no doubt; yet we shall do even better next time. . ..

I have solved a problem that has often blistered my heart, and proved that Navy officers are fit for something else than scrubbing decks at sea and tacking ship. You know I did not want the place, and only decided to keep it when I heard it had been promised to a civilian, under the plea that no one in the Navy was fit for it. I then went to Mason, pronounced that the repetition of a practical libel, and told him he must stand by me. He did so, and though I had never seen an instrument of the kind before, and had no one with me who had, I was determined to ask no advice or instruction from the savans, but to let it be out and out a Navy work. Under these circumstances you may well imagine the pleasure which I derive from any fresh proof of success.

There is a chance of the Observatory being converted into the "Hydrographical Bureau," with a salary of $3,500. I would be wrong to give up that; but, as I said before, if it were not for my poverty, I should not desire to remain here longer than to satisfy two or three problems, and I have sent for an instrument, to help in solving them. I beg pardon, but one must take an airing on one's hobby now and then.

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. . . . The Observatory affairs go on pretty well. They speak of us kindly in Europe, and I think we are making friends in Congress. I am preparing for an expedition during the summer, on the Magnetic Telegraph Routes, for the purpose of determining difference of longitude between the principal cities and the Observatory.

Willy, I suppose, is toting the chain? Tell him to drive ahead, study well, and improve fast; I shall want him to go out and survey the route for the Memphis and California Railroad. . ..