Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/622

 6i6 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

��£. Lester Jones, presided at the public sessions, and the opening address was made by Mr. William G. Redfield, sec- retary of commerce, the department of which the survey is now a bureau. At

��work on weights and measures, and in 1832 again assumed the duties of sup^- intendent of the survey, which he eon- ducted with admirable skill until his death in 1843.

��the banquet the president of the j Ilassler was succeeded as head of the United States made one of the ad- ' survey by Alexander Dallas Bache, a dresses. Others were by the secretary, great grandson of Benjamin Franklin, of the navy, the secretary of com- ' whose scientific aptitudes and diplo- merce, the minister from Switzerland, matic skill he inherited. Graduating and the former superintendent of the ; from the West Point Military Academy, survey, Dr. T. C. Mendenhall. he had attained distinction as a scien-

The address of Dr. Mendenhall and tific man of originality and power, and some of the other addresses give inter- was recommended as Hassler 's successor esting reminlHcences of the early work ' by the scientific societies and institu- of the survey and its first three super-, tions of learning. His services were intendents, portraits of whom are here, continued for twenty- five years until his reproduced by the courtesy of the death in 1867; they carried forward superintendent of the survey. Ferdi- and enlarged in important directions the nand Hassler, born in Switzerland, work begun by Hassler. trained in the best schools of Europe I Benjamin Peirce, the distinguished and practised in geodetic work, came to | mathematician, who had conducted the

��the United States in 1805, bringing with him a fine library of over 3,000

��longitude operations of the survey dur- ing the latter years of Bache's admin-

��volumes and a collection of technical ist ration, succeeded him as superintend- instruments such as had never before ent, a position which he held until the crossed the ocean. He was later ap- ' age of sixty-five years, while retaining pointed acting professor of mathemat- his professorship at Harvard Univer- ics at West Point and, through his ' sity. The picture of Peirce shows him friend and countryman, Albert Gallatin, at the blackboard. He is said once at

��was introduced to Jefferson, who had recommended to the Congress a survey of the coasts. Hassler demanded and received a salary equal to that of the head of the department to which the

��a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences to have spent an hour filling the blackboard with equations, and then to have remarked "There is only one member of the Academy who can

��new bureau was assigned. It is said understand my work and he is in South

that the president objected, saying America." Under Peirce a chain of

''your salary would be as large as that triangles extending across the continent

of my secretary of the treasury, your was planned covering the whole coun-

superior officer," and that he replied: try by a trigonometrical survey and

''Any president can make a secretary joining the systems of the Atlantic and

of the treasury but only God Almighty Pacific coasts.

can make a Hassler." We may hope that the next three

Hassler was sent abroad in 1811 to superintendents of the Ck>ast and Geo-

purchase the necessary instruments and detic Survey will be men so distin*

standards of measurement but was de- guished in science as Hassler, Baehe

tained in England as an alien enemy, and Peirce. If this is not the case we

When he returned, in 1816, the Coast should surely enquire into the reason,

and Geodetic Survey was organized, Is it because the men do not exist, or

and geodetic, topographic and hydro- are we less competent to manage the

graphic work was begun. Owing to scientific bureaus now than was the case

lack of appropriations by Congress, in the earlier part of the nineteenth

work was abandoned for twelve years, century f We can not believe that the

when Ilassler was placed in charge of human germ plasm has changed in the

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