Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/416

404 for several years materials for investigating the comparative rates of chronometers at sea and on shore, he presented a paper to the American Academy in which he effectually disposed of the scientific question involved, so far as it related to the interests of navigation. Mr. G. P. Bond, who records this, states that his father investigated also the influence of changes of temperature in the presence of large surfaces of iron upon the performance of chronometers, and, "although the conclusions arrived at were at variance with the opinions of men high in authority in such matters, they are now known to be correct."

About this time the Navy Department sent out the Wilkes Exploring Expedition, the purpose of which in part was to establish the latitudes and longitudes of uncharted places in distant parts, of the world where American commerce was extending, and in part to investigate natural phenomena, including the facts of terrestrial magnetism. In connection with this expedition, Mr. Bond was engaged to make at his private observatory investigations to fix a zero of longitude, whence final reference to Greenwich might be had, and to make a continuous record of magnetic observations at Dorchester for comparison with like records obtained at distant points by the expedition itself. As preliminary to the latter work Mr. Bond tested the magnetic instruments with which the expedition was to be equipped.

Josiah Quincy, who had given Mr. Bond early encouragement, was now President of Harvard College. It occurred to him, to use his own words, "that if Mr. Bond could be induced to transfer his apparatus and residence to Cambridge and pursue his observations there, under the auspices of the university, it would have an important influence in clearing the way for the establishment of an efficient observatory in connection with that seminary."

There was little inducement for Mr. Bond to make the change. His business was prosperous and his home life among friends and neighbors whom he had known for years was very pleasant. The college could offer him no salary—only the use of a house. In his excessive modesty he feared that the arrangement proposed would arouse great expectations that he with the facilities at his command would be unable to satisfy. He made other objections, but all were overcome, and on November 30, 1839, he entered into a contract with the college corporation, agreeing to make the transfer as proposed. A subscription was at once raised for fitting up a dwelling owned by the college to be occupied by Mr. Bond. This building, known as the Dana House, was the first observatory of Harvard College. It still stands upon its original site at the southeast corner of what are distinctively called the college grounds, and is remembered by many Harvard graduates as the residence for a term of years of the Rev. Dr. A. P. Peabody.