LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. c GIKT OK r Ctes THE DUDLEY OBSERVATORY. AN ADDEESS TO THE CITIZENS OF ALBANY, AND THE DONORS AND FRIENDS OF THE DUDLEY OBSERVATORY, ON THE RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES; FROM THE COMMITTEE OF CITIZENS APPOINTED AT A PUBLIC MEETING HELD IN ALBANY, ON THE 13-TH OF JULY, 1858. ALBANY : COMSTOCK & CASSIDY, PRINTERS. 1858. AN ADDRESS TO THE CITIZENS OF ALBANY, AND THE DONORS AND FRIENDS OF THE DUDLEY OBSERVATORY. We who now address you, under our proper names, were constituted a Committee for that purpose, at a meeting held in Albany on the 13th instant, and which assembled under a call numerously signed by our fellow citizens. The call referred to, and the meeting itself, represented largely the intelligence and worth of the city. The general views of those who called and attended the meeting were expressed in several brief Resolutions already before the public. One of these indicates the duty imposed upon us. It is an un- welcome and painful duty, but we propose to discharge it fearlessly, as the case and the occasion demand, and we hope without offence. We recognize and respect the appropriate duties, and the proper power of the Trustees of the Dudley Observa- tory ; but we see nothing in the legal position held by them, or in the official action they have thought fit to take in re- lation to Dr. Gould, the Director of the Observatory, and to Professors Henry, Bache and Peirce, comprising, with Dr. Gould, its Scientific Council, which should restrain us, and those whom we represent, whether interested in the Observatory as donors, or only as citizens, from giving ex- pression to our opinions in the fullest manner, on whatever concerns or affects that establishment. The Dudley Observatory is a public, scientific Founda- tion, instituted for prosecuting and advancing scientific knowledge. It is fixed in Albany, and its principal bene- factress and founder resides in Albany. So do several others of its generous donors. It is here that the proper work and operations of the Observatory are to be conduc- ted and carried on. And it is because it stands on the grounds of our city, that the citizens of Albany take, or should take, a more than common interest in it. And we know of no reason why those who are its Trustees should feel, or why they should be capable of feeling, a stronger desire for its success, or a deeper antici- pated mortification at its failure, if fail it must, than we feel. In its success, some share of the honor must be re- flected upon Albany, because it stands here, and because it owes its origin to the generosity and exertions of Alba- nians. In its failure, if fail it must, and if it fails 3 as fail it will, if at all, by suicidal hands here, the whole discredit will rest upon Albany. In that case, like the infamy brought upon a family by the public crime of one member of it, the shame is likely to be felt quite as keenly by the innocent as by the guilty. But it is only in a very narrow sense, that this Observa- tory is a local Foundation. Albany does not own it ; the Trustees do not own it; founders and donors together do not own it. Science owns it, to which it was solemnly dedica- ted, and science has its dwelling and home wherever on the broad earth, its votaries are found. The Observatory was instituted, as we have said, for prosecuting and advancing scientific discovery and knowledge ; and every grand disco- very made by its agency, and every grand result brought out by its use, belong to the scientific world they belong, instantly as they are produced, as much to London, and Paris, and St. Petersburgh, and Constantinople, and Calcut- ta, as to Albany; and we hazard little in saying that Albany has not yet begun to feel the interest in the efficient equip- ment and working of the Dudley Observatory, has not yet begun to watch with half the concern for the results of the scientific labors already performed, and still we hope, to be performed there, as is felt to-day in the distant places we have named and in other distant places which might be named. It is in this view of the subject that we, and those whose opinions we represent, claim a right, in common with the le- gal Trustees of the Observatory, not as citizens of Albany only, but as individuals, having we hope ; as true an appre- ciation as they have of the largo benefits intended to be de- rived to science from its scientific conduct, to hold, and to express freely, whatever opinions or views we may enter- tain on whatever proceedings or measures, done or proposed, may seem to us calculated to endanger, or to affect in any way, the great primary objects for which it was instituted. A Board of Trustees is a very small part, indeed, of the due organization of an Observatory. An Act of incorpora- tion with Trustees, gives it a name, makes it a legal entity, and places it under the shield and protection of the govern- ment and law of the land. But an Observatory is not to be put in operation and conducted like a Bank or a Manufacturing Company, by a Board of business men selected or named to act as Trustees or Directors. Such a Board is proper and necessary to stand as its legal representative. It has also its necessary business affairs which are properly confided to such a Board. But a Board of Trustees, composed of business men, however respectable, of ordinary, or even more than ordinary, intelligence and information, could no more direct and conduct the necessary arrangements for putting an Observatory anything worth the name of an Observa- tory into operation, or carry on its operations when arranged, than they could make the Heavens, and its starry worlds, which are to be the objects of its observations. It is no disparagement to the Board of Trustees, or any mem- ber of it, to say that no person belonging to it, either alone, or with the aid of all the talent and learning of his asso- ciates, and though putting in requisition all the skill and ability of all the common architects and mechanics at his command, was or is capable, in any degree, of directing the construction of the principal Observatory building, with its moveable dome, and openings, and their necessary machi- nery ; or the preparation and adjustment of the fixtures for its great instruments ; of designing, planning and placing these instruments so as to secure the highest efficiency ; of completing the necessary equipment of the building or finally, if every thing was ready for the great work to be done, of putting the Observatory in motion so as to make it anything more than a showman's shop for the amuse- ment of grown up children. We do not say this disparag- ingly. We only say of the Trustees what we willingly say of ourselves. If our names were added in a body to theirs as Trustees, and half Albany besides, or all Albany, were brought in to our aid, we should all of us together be utter- ly incapable of directing the necessary constructions, arrangements, equipments and scientific operations of the Dudley Observatory. All this must necessarily be in other hands. The proper work of an Observatory is to carry forward observations, discoveries and investigations in the department of Astronomical Science. To do this to make any advance in this science, or even to do, with any credi- table accuracy, the common and routine work of an Observatory the first grand requisite of course is to pro- vide the proper constructions and equipments These can only be prepared under the direction of those who are to use them, or of those who understand precisely the delicate and complicated objects and uses to which they are to be applied. Nothing of all this is work to be done or directed in person, by a Board of Trustees, having no pretension to a learned and practical acquaintance with Astronomy, or the true uses of an Observatory. And as little ought such a Board, of itself, and without the counsel of scientific men of known and established reputation, to undertake to select persons to direct and carry on the scientific operations of an Observatory. For such a Board of Trustees to assume the arbitrary rirht of appointment and removal over the scientific Director of an Observatory, according to their own unaided judgment concerning his capacity and fitness, or according to the fancies they may indulge, or to assume the right of per- sonal supervision, direction and control over him in the performance of his scientific duties, just as they would exercise the same powers over a paid clerk or agent, if they were the Trustees of a Railroad or a Transportation Company, would be to mistake very grossly the nature of their own proper duties as well as the nature of his. The Dudley Observatory had a nominal existence as a corporate body, with a Board of Trustees, for some years prior to the connection of the Scientific Council with it. This connection began in 1855, and, however informal may have been the action of the Board of Trustees in the ap- pointment, it was an effective arrangement, and was accepted and acted on as such, both by the Trustees and by the eminent gentleman named to act in that capacity. Prof. Henry, Prof. Bache, Prof. Peirce, and Dr. Gould, stood before the public, from that time, in this important official relation to the Observatory, and their names at- tracted at once the attention and the confidence of the scientific world. These gentlemen proposed to make it, what every new Observatory should be, an instrument of advancing astronomical science beyond anything yet attained ; and for this purpose to begin with an Observa- tory building, fixtures and equipments not only quite up to, but, if possible, quite in advance of the latest improve- ments. Fortunately, in Dr. Gould, one of the Scientific Council, was found an individual thoroughly master of the whole field of interesting labor on which the Council was 8 to enter, and who had already, at his early age, as the most ample testimonies show, manifested a genius for this depart- ment of Science, and a power over its instrumentalities, which had made his name known and honored wherever a first class Observatory existed in either hemisphere. It was a part of the plan of operations at that time, that the Observatory should start with an ample endowment. Ten thousand dollars was named as the least amount of annual income to be applied to its support. All this was thought, we believe, at that time, by the active and controlling members of the Board, to be quite attainable. This endow- ment and income being secured, an impression prevailed that Dr. Gould might be induced to become the resident Director of the Observatory, with the pledge of the repu- tation of his elder and distinguished associates in the CouDcil for his success. Up to the time of the connection thus formed, the Dudley Observatory consisted of an unfinished Observatory build- ing, wholly unfitted, without material changes, for the uses to be made of it ; and but for the connection of the Scien- tific Council with it, it would have gone to decay, or would have stood only as an expensive and useless contrivance, in which the money of its generous founder and benefactress was sacrificed. What a Board of Trustees could do alone, iu building up and managing an Observatory had been suf- ficiently tested. It was in every sense a dead enterprise, when it was taken in hand by the Scientific Council. It is not our purpose in this communication to talk of le- gal contracts. The laws must take care of that. We shall speak only of obligations, such as faith, and truth, arid hon- or, and conscience make binding on every man. The connection of the Scientific Council with the Obser- vatory, and the arrangements which finally placed Dr. Gould, one of their number, with his assistants, in possession and charge of it, had their origin in what occurred at a meeting of the American Scientific Association at Providence, in August, 1855. An understanding was entered into on that occasion, that a Heliometer, a very rare instrument, the use of which promised to prove useful to the interests of the United States, in charge of Professor Bache, should be pro- cured for the Dudley Observatory, and that in return, Prof. Bache should place in the Observatory a Transit instrument from among those belonging to the Coast Survey, for his use and the use of the Observatory, and supply an observer from among his assistants. In this prospect of saving the Dud- ley Observatory from utter worthlessness and decay, Mrs. Dudley, at whose expense mainly, an otherwise useless build- ing had been erected, was relied on, and successfully, to furnish the funds for the Heliometer. It was soon after this that Professor Henry, Prof. Bache, Prof. Peirce and Dr. Gould, were formally named as the Scientific Council of the Observatory. It is well known that without this special understanding with Prof. Bache, and this connection with the Scientific Council, the Dudley Observatory could not have been brought into practical existence and operation at all. It would have had no funds to complete the necessary build- ings and arrangements, or to procure instruments ; and it would have had no endowment, and no chance of any en- dowment. But for this understanding and connection, the grand ceremonies of its Inauguration in 1856, would never have taken place ; the immortal oration of Edward Everett would never have been pronounced; and the noble addition- al donation of fifty thousand dollars from Mrs. Dudley, would never have been tendered. It was on the basis alone of this understanding and connection, that most of the other donations were solicited and obtained. In short, everybody knows that the very existence of the Observatory to-day, as a practical thing, for all that it is, and all that it has pro- mised to be or to do, in any degree profitable or creditable to science, is due, absolutely, to the understanding referred to with Prof. Bache, the arrangement with him and his as- 2 10 sociates, as a Scientific Council, and, finally, the presence and labors of Dr. Gould and his assistants on the premises. Dr. Gould, at an early day, at the solicitation of the Trustees, consented to visit Europe in the service of the Observatory. This service was rendered gratuitously, and half of his expenses in it was freely paid out of his own pocket. When the time came for preparing the Observatory building and premises for the reception of in- struments and for practical operations, Dr. Gould made repeated visits to Albany to direct and superintend the work, always without compensation and at his own expense. His patient efforts to control what was doing, so indispen- sable to future scientific operations, were attended with only indifferent success. When the financial crisis of 1857 came, all prospect of completing the proposed and required endowment of the Observatory seemed, at least for the time, to be at an end. The condition, of course, on which the hope of Dr. Gould's acceptance of the Directorship had been originally based, had failed. But in spite of difficul- ties and discouragements really appalling to less courageous minds, he was not disheartened. Enthusiastic in the pur- suit of his favorite science, generous, disinterested and noble, he resolved to make a final effort and sacrifice to serve and save the Dudley Observatory. In January last a final and definite arrangement was entered into with the Scientific Council and with Dr. Gould as Director. The financial condition of the Observatory, as then disclosed by the President of the Board of Trustees, presented to Dr. Gould the alternative of rendering to the Observatory gratuitous service, for two years, with a corps of assistants also to render gratuitous service, or of seeing the whole enterprise result in certain disaster and failure He came to Albany on the terms proposed, and under formal and explicit arrangements with the Trustees, by which the Scientific Council was confirmed in its official relation to the Observatory, and by which the Observatory, for every 11 scientific purpose connected with it, was placed, as a letter of the President of the Board declares, " in the en- tire and exclusive charge of Dr. Gould, subject only to the Scientific Council." But the circumstances under which the Scientific Coun- cil have been performing their duties, and under which Dr. Gould and his assistants have been carrying on their ope- rations, require a little further explanation. The Heliometer contemplated in the original understand- ing, though ordered, is not yet furnished. The delay has been unavoidable. In the meantime, however, and since early in the present year, Dr. Gould and his assistants, all of whom are in the service of the Coast Survey, have been carrying on the double labor of their proper duties in the business of that great public work, and of the proper busi- ness of the Observatory. We can all understand how this service could be rendered to the Observatory not only with- out injury, but with the prospect of advantage, to the in- terests of the Coast Survey. The longitude party of the Coast Survey is under the personal direction of Dr. Gould, and consists of two field parties, and a party of computers. This party of computers could carry on their work as well at least at Albany as elsewhere. Albany was made, there- upon, the Coast Survey station for this party. The severe labor of their employment for the Coast Survey is exacted at the rate of six hours per day. The rest of their time, both of the day and of the night, belongs to themselves. And thus it results, that Dr. Gould and his assistants, four in number, are here, and have been now for months, giving six hours a day of assiduous labor to the Coast Survey, looking to the scanty wages of this labor for their liveli- hood, and then bestowing, as an entire gratuity, and sokly for the love of science, nearly as much time on the pro- per business of the Observatory, as if that were their sole and well-paid occupation. 12 But the making of Albany a Coast Survey station has had other consequences not altogether unimportant. In 1857, the Legislature of this State appropriated two thou- sand dollars for the determination of the true meridian of such points "in the State as might be directed by the Regents of the University. It was proposed to determine the meridian of the Dudley Observatory as one point, and to connect this with a point in the city of New York. This was what the State of New York wanted, and was satisfactory to the Regents, who, it is understood, placed the appropriation at the command of the Board of Trus- tees for this purpose. The same points were required to be determined and connected for longitude in the system of triangulation of the Hudson river, for the Coast Survey. The Superintendent of the Coast Survey caused this work to be undertaken. Of the two x thousand dollars appro- priated by the State, the work cost the Trustees only six hundred dollars, though the outlay was several hundred more. The Coast Survey, of course, bears the rest of the expenditure for the benefit derived to it. The remainder of the appropriation is understood to belong to the Trus- tees, and is a handsome profit to the Observatory, resulting from this incidental connection with the Coast Survey. What we have now stated, sufficiently explains the posi- tion of the Scientific Council, and of Dr. Gould, the Director, at the Observatory. Prof. Bache, one of the Council, from his public position, while serving faithfully the true interests of the great public work he is conduct- ing, was enabled to make the Observatory grounds a sta- tion of the United States Coast Survey. This he did, having caused to be erected there a building, with the sanction of the Trustees, of which he is in possession in behalf of the United States, with the instruments of the Survey. Dr. Gould, another of the Council, was enabled, from his position in the same public service, to take up his residence in the dwelling-house on the Observatory grounds, 13 with his party of Coast Survey computers a residence assigned him by the Trustees and thus to become the Director of the Observatory. He now occupies the house, having furnished it at his own cost. The great advantages of the arrangement thus made, to the Dudley Observatory, are too manifest to be dis- puted. The Trustees received the gratuitous and disinte- rested services of a body of the most eminent scientific men in the country to act as a Council. They secured the gratuitous and disinterested services of a Director who has no superior, and who was enabled to bring to his aid the gratuitous and disinterested services of four most meri- torious and accomplished young gentlemen, as his assist- ants. For two years, the Director was expected to labor, and his assistants along with him, in the service of the Observatory, and in the service of science, without one dollar of pecuniary compensation from the Trustees It remains to be seen on what grounds they have thought it advisable to throw away these advantages. The majority of the Trustees have manifestly misunder- stood and mistaken entirely the terms on which the Scien- tific Council, and the Director, accepted their great trust, and the relation in which they stood to the Trustees, and in which the Trustees stood to them, and in which both stood to the Observatory. They seem to have taken up the notion, and they have acted upon it to a most disastrous conclusion, that the Scientific Council and the Director were in their service; they have treated the Scientific Council, and Dr. Gould, precisely as if the relation between the Trustees and them was that of master and servants. They were no more in the service of the Trustees than the Trustees were in theirs. They were in the service of the Dudley Observa- tory, which was put in their possession and placed in their charge, and in the service of Science. Science was their mas- ter not the Trustees. The Trustees, too, were in the 14 service of the Observatory, but in a sense bearing no com- parison in dignity and importance to that in which the Scientific Council were engaged, We do not dispute the legal position of the Trustees, or their legal power, under a Charter which creates a close corporation. It is only when they employ their legal power to cover and justify the exer- cise of prerogatives, as well in matters of service as in authority, which, in the nature of things, do not and can- not belong to them, that we protest against it. Here was a body of scientific men, of great eminence, four in number, all having their regular occupation in other honorable and kindred service, who volunteered, with the glad assent and co-operation of the Trustees, to add to the burthen of their other labors that of taking charge, without a dollar of pecuniary compensation, of the scientific con- duct of the Dudley Observatory. It was a charge of emi- nent responsibility, involving a service of which the Trus- tees were confessedly incapable, as they were also of directing or in any manner controlling it, or of judging of its proper performance. The responsibility they assumed was not a responsibility to the Trustees except as involved in the possible exercise of a mere arbitrary power ; it was a direct responsibility to the Dudley Observatory, to its founder and donors, and to the cause of Science. No part of the respon- sibility for the success of the scientific arrangement and conduct of the Observatory rested upon the Trustees. Nobody thought of holding them responsible in that re- gard. Neither the principal benefactress, nor the donors as a body, ever looked to them as having any responsible control over the scientific work of the Observatory. They looked alone to that array of names which composed the Scientific Council. No man in his senses would have con- tributed a dollar to an Observatory to be worked by such names as theirs. And we must be allowed to say that we hold them, as we should hold ourselves in their case, to be 15 quite out of place, out of depth, and out of character, in assuming any of the responsibilities, or any share in the responsibilities, properly belonging to the Director of the Observatory, or the Scientific Council. The Scientific Council was one body, and in the respon- sibilities of the charge they undertook, no distinction was to be made, or admitted, between the Council, and one of their number, who was to reside on the premises, and act as Director of the Observatory. He was here, not as Director only, but as a member of the Council ; and in his person, as the trusted and faithful executive officer, representative and associate of the Council, the Council was here, conducting the scientific affairs of the Observa- tory. His possession was their possession, his duty was their duty, his responsibility was their responsibility. The Trustees have appealed to the Charter. We say again, nobody disputes their just legal power. They ex- ercised this power properly and usefully, and according to the intent of the law, when they made the arrangement which placed the Scientific Council in charge, and gave them legal possession of the Observatory, for every scien- tific, and therefore for every practical purpose which can be connected with its occupation. It is quite another matter when they hold up the Charter as their warrant for an attempt to oust the Council and the Director, sum- marily and peremptorily, of their rightful possession, and to disturb them in the great trust devolved upon them through their own agency, and in the midst of the highest duties of their responsible charge, without one reason we do not hesitate to say deliberately without one soli- tary reason founded in any fact, or in any occurrence, or in any duty on their part as the legal Trustees, in any manner affecting or bearing upon the interests of the Dud- ley Observatory as a foundation for the cultivation and advancement of science, or upon the interests of science 16 itself, which can justify or excuse their action, either be- fore the Scientific world, or before any thinking and en- lightened community on earth. Here their appeal to the Charter is out of place. Here their action has been, not according to the intent of the law, but against it, and in violation of it. The Charter gives them no warrant for turning their back,' without cause, on their own freely assumed obligations obligations under which important personal rights and interests have been acquired ; for sub- stituting personal feeling in the premises for public duty; for breaking up an arrangement made, as they well know, for the highest advantage of the great public interests they were appointed to serve, and which arrangement they know, and we know, and everybody knows, is just as much for the advantage of those interests to-day, as it was the day it was made. We do not undertake to limit the legal power of the Trustees under the charter. The courts may settle that. We do not know that they may not, by the Charter, eject, by as summary a process as they propose, the Scientific Council from the possession of the Observatory, and the Superintendent of the Coast Survey from the station he has established there; we do not know that they may not, by the Charter, turn Dr. Gould, and his furniture, at a moment's notice, from the dwelling he occupies, into the street ; we do not know that they might not, by the Char- ter, lay violent hands on all the costly, beautiful and deli- cate instruments of science found on the premises, whether belonging to the Observatory or not, cast them out of doors and windows, and off from the premises, as so much offensive rubbish ; we do not know to what strange or puerile uses the Dudley Observatory might not, by the Charter, be converted ; we do not know what acts in con- tempt of science, or what acts of positive barbarism, might not be committed, by the Charter, if it could be supposed 17 that the Trustees, or any of them, were capable of such acts. And when the Trustees appeal to the Charter, as their warrant of justification for a course of action to- wards the Director and the Scientific Council of the Ob- servatory, which we believe to be, without possible gain- saying, in flagrant violation, and obstruction, of their rights and duties, and in manifest derogation of the interests of the Observatory and the interests of science ; when they do this, we appeal from the Charter to the higher moral obligations of right and duty to which they were bound, both by their official' position, and by the engagements they had voluntarily entered into. We repeat, that the Scientific Council, in the person of Dr. Gould, one of their number, was in the actual posses- sion of the Dudley Observatory, for all scientific and prac- tical purposes, with the assent and co-operation of the Trustees. The authority of the Trustees, and the autho- rity of the Charter, were used to place and confirm them in that possession. The possession was given to them, because without it, they could not conduct its scientific operations. The principal observer and his assistants must live on the premises ; a dwelling house was erected for this purpose. The Observatory building was con- structed to contain the necessary scientific library, and to hold and work the necessary scientific apparatus and instruments. The exclusive command and control of this building, 'and all it contains, must necessarily be in the resident Director. He became, by the act of the Trustees, the tenant in possession of the building and premises, upon the ground and obligations of all the terms expressed, and all the terms implied, in the arrangement. The imme> diate and direct possession passed out of their hands, and into his; and they had no legal right, as Trustees, to 3 18 intrude at any time injuriously or offensively upon him in his proper possession. He was the tenant in possession, and as such, he had interests to protect, not personal only, but public, and those not their interests, but the interests of the Observatory and of science. No Director of an Observatory, consistently with his duty, could per- mit intrusions from anybody, Trustee or not, at hours inconvenient to his systematic labors, or intrusions at any hours in his absence, unless under rules and regulations which should guard the delicate instruments under his charge, and the delicate, difficult, and complicated opera- tions he might be carrying on, from danger of disturbance or derangement. "We care nothing for the reserved power of the Trustees, whatever it may be, as a mere matter of technical law, over the Observatory and its grounds. What we know is, that it could only be rightfully exercised in harmony with the proper possession of the Director, and with the exclusive control which he must exercise as indispensable to the due performance of his duties. We know that they have had no duties to perform there in the scientific arrangement, or in the scientific operations of the Obser- vatory, except as these may connect themselves with the management of the funds of the institution. With this exception, they had discharged all their obligations to the Observatory, so far as its scientific conduct is concerned, when this duty was confided to the. Scientific Council at least so long as that duty should be faith- fully and duly performed. With a proper understand- ing of their own rights and duties, and a proper ap- preciation of the rights and duties of the Director and the Council, we entertain a confident and certain convic- tion that the Trustees never would have found any just or plausible ground, or pretext, for beginning a contest, or making issues, with the Director and Council. 19 As it was, the managing members of the Board found no occasion on which to take any offensive measure against the Director, until it was done in a spirit of passionate resentment, for his very manly, gentlemanly and proper reply, on the 31st of May, to a series of Resolutions which had been adopted by the Executive Committee of the Board on the 22d of May, and forwarded to the Director. These Resolutions were of a most extraordinary character ; they proposed, in effect, to open the grounds of the Ob- servatory to the public, as a park, or promenade ; to convert the Observatory building into a public museum of curiosities ; and to place duplicate keys at the command of any of the Trustees, so as to give them access, " at any and all hours, " " with or without friends," " to the Ob- servatory and all its rooms !" The final Resolution of the series fitly crowned the whole, by the insult of an official demand upon the Director to instruct his assistants, young gentlemen of refined education and manners, to treat the Trustees, and other visitors to the Observatory with civility ! Because some of the Trustees had so far forgot- ten what was due to the essential rules of such a place, and to every sense of propriety, as to demand of the subordinates of Dr. Gould, in his absence, or when his back was turned, what would have been gross misconduct in them to grant, the possession of Dr. Gould's keys, and free access to whatever was there under his personal charge and responsibility ; and because this demand, how- ever repeated or urged, and in whatever language or manner, was firmly but, as we believe, courteously refused, it seems that such deep offence was taken, that, as if bereft of their senses, they rushed out to take their remedy and redress into their own hands, by passing that series of Resolutions, to which we have just re- ferred. The letter of Dr. Gould, in answer to these Resolutions, which, in manner and matter, is worthy of 20 all commendation, which only needs to be read^ to be thoroughly approved by every disinterested and thinking man, was made the occasion by the managers for procur- ing from the Board of Trustees its assent to the Resolu- tion of the 4th of June, which was directed to be commu- nicated to the Scientific Council. This Resolution the managers have since chosen to construe as a peremptory dismissal of Dr. Gould from his position. We cannot believe that those who voted for it, with few exceptions, understood it then as bearing any such meaning. It must be observed, that when this Resolution, now held by the managers to be a Resolution of dismissal, was passed, the Board had nothing before it for its justification but the letter of Dr. Gould, referred to, and the particular mat- ters which led to it, and to which it related. If this was really understood then as a Resolution of dismissal, it must be confessed it stood on a very narrow foundation. In his Manifesto of the 26th of June, the President declares, and he makes the declaration emphatic by italicising the words, that "This letter affords sufficient justification for terminating his (Dr. Gould's) relations with this institu- tion," the grounds of justification being, according to the President, that the letter was characterized by " arro- gance, insolence and conceit.'' We do not know, but we are not warranted in believing, that this letter was read at the Board when this regula- tion of the 4th of June was passed. If it had been, we are sure that honorable and sensible men belonging to the Board, at least if they had given themselves time to make up any independent judgment in the case, instead of see- ing anything in it to condemn, would have seen every- thing to approve and admire. We are not afraid to put our judgment of this letter against that of the President. We say that it does not contain one word, or one senti- ment, or one statement or principle, which it ought not 21 to contain, and which is not highly creditable to its author. Instead of being characterized by " arrogance, insolence and conceit," it is modest, restrained, and for- bearing, expressed in perfect courtesy, and in the simpli- city of truth, knowledge, justice and common sense. And candor obliges us to say, that if it was felt as a rebuke by the Executive Committee, it was merely because it contrasted so strongly, in all these particulars, with their Resolutions, to which it was an answer. We are not warranted in believing that the resolution of the 4th of June, at least if then understood generally in the Board as a dismissal of Dr. Gould, could have been passed on the basis of such a letter as this as its justifica- tion, if those members of the Board, who could have had no personal ends to accomplish, and no personal animosi- ties to gratify, had given themselves the trouble to read this letter, and to understand the simple truth and justice of the matters to which it related. Nor are we warranted in believing that the Manifesto of the President, subse- quently presented to the Board and to the public, and manifestly designed as a weapon of swift destruction to Dr. Gould, could have been approved and adopted by the Board, with the Resolutions which accompanied it, if those members of the Board who could have had no motives for their action but a sense of duty, right and justice, had given themselves time enough only for a very little inquiry into matters of fact, and for a very little reflection. We all understand how work of this sort is done, and how only such work can be done, in a Board of Trustees. The whole matter rests in few hands. Two or three active and untiring spirits, manage and control everything. This has been emphatically the case with this Board, from the beginning to the disastrous end. The public understand this perfectly. Two or three men in it have been mainly sufficient to rule it with unresisted sway. Four or five of 22 their number, indeed, have not yielded to their authority. The rest have followed the too common course ; they have suffered their names to be used to record the decrees of the dominant managers, some of them we believe very reluc- tantly, as half conscious of the wrong, and most of them, it is apparent, without any independent examination or con- sideration whatever of the matters to which they w T ere lend- ing their sanction. Certainly, they could have known lite- rally nothing of what we now know, and what the public now know, from the disclosures of the published correspon- dence between the parties, and the report of the Scientific Council. The President's Manifesto, to which we have referred, is little creditable enough on the face of it ; but what we now know, from evidence which does not leave in our minds a shadow of doubt to rest on any transaction, fact, or matter, to which it refers or relates, compels us to de- clare that a more unworthy, unfounded, unjustifiable and offensive paper, in every particular and aspect of it, never met our eye as emanating from any respectable man, public or private, in any community. That paper bears on the face of it the evidence that it was elaborately framed, not, probably, without the advice and aid of one or two otker trustees. It was not a mere state- ment of reasons for the "want of harmony " between the Trustees and Dr. Gould, of which they had complained to the Scientific Council,' in their resolution of the 4th of June, to be laid before that body, as the Council had de- manded, but it was a direct appeal to the public, furnish, ed directly to the newspapers, to be spread broadcast over the country, in the name of the President, and under the sanction of a special vote of approval by the Board of Trustees, to take public opinion by storm, and thus over- whelm Dr. Gould by one stunning and crushing blow, before that omnipotent, and often unrelenting tribunal. 23 This paper was freighted, deep as it could swim, with complaints, charges and accusations against Dr. Gould, and with personal vituperation and abuse of him, and of his assistants at the Observatory. We appeal now solemnly, in behalf of Dr. Gould, from this paper, to the pnl 'ished Correspondence between the parties, and to the full, com- plete, unanswerable and overwhelming Exposition just offered to the public by the Scientific Council, which show, in our judgment, beyond all possible cavil, the utter groundlessness of every injurious imputation, statement or inuendo contained in this document. We solemnly de- clare to the citizens of Albany, to the donors of the Dud- ley Observatory, and in the face of the public and the world, and we pledge our honor and our characters, for whatever they may be worth, to the absolute and literal verity of what we say, as summed up from the develop- ments and facts now before us in the Correspondence and Exposition just referred to, that, if there be any truth in human testimony, or any faith due to virtue, honor, in- tegrity and principle in the highest exhibitions of these qualities in human nature, when they stand as the guar- anty of human testimony, then there does not exist, and there never has existed, the slightest foundation in truth, or in the semblance of truth, in reason, or in the semblance of reason, in justice, or in the semblance of justice, for any of the complaints, charges or accusations against Dr. Gould, contained in this paper, or for any of the imputa- tions or statements in it, reflecting in any manner injuri- ously upon his character or conduct. Taking them to- gether or taking them one by one ; taking them from the most grave of all to the most trivial of all ; taking them in their substance and in their expression ; taking them in what is said and in what is insinuated ; taking them in their order and in their confusion ; taking them in what- ever there is of light and in whatever there is of obscu- 24 rity about them ; taking them how, and when, and where you will ; for whatever there is in them intended, or cal- culated, to bring Dr. Gould's character, scientific, official, or personal, into disparagement, doubt or question, or to cast reproach or obloquy upon him, or to impute to him misconduct, or blame, or even blameable error or mistake, in his official relations to the Dudley Observatory, or in his official or personal relations to the Trustees ; we pro- nounce them, one and all, merely, utterly and nakedly scandalous, without a shadow of truth, reason or justice, to stand upon. We enter into no particulars on this subject in this communication. In the Statement of the Scientific Council, everything is explained with particularity, and with all necessary detail. We refer to that Exposition and we adopt its statements and explanations, as carrying manifest and undeniable verity on the face of them. That exposition is full, and therefore it could not be short. We call upon all amongst us, who take any interest in the Dudley Ob- servatory, who take any interest in science, who think that Albany, or the country at large, has any reputation at stake in this matter, or who think there is anything in scientific fame, or in human character, worth vindicating or preserving when ruthlessly assailed, to read the Exposi- tion of the Scientific Council. We appeal to it, as our com- plete and unimpeachable warrant for the strong grounds of resistance we take to the attempt that has been made to overwhelm Dr. Gould with reproach and obloquy. In this matter, we stand by his side, pledging to the public whatever Ave have of character or, reputation, that he comes vindicated, justified and triumphant, by the defence of the Scientific Council, and by the power of Truth and Justice, out of the' terrible ordeal through which he has been compelled to pass. 25 It must not be supposed that the hostility now manifested to Dr. Gould is a thing of recent date. The Manifesto of the President shows sufficiently how far back it began. When Dr. Gould came here in January last, he was soon made aware that, added to all his other embarrassments and difficulties, he was to encounter the opposition and enmity, in spite of outward professions and show of respect and civility, of some of the Trustees ; and those, such of the number, though few, as had taken the power of the Board into their hands. All this became known to some of us, and to others in this community, as well to him. He resolved, however, to do his whole duty to the Observatory, to save it, if he could, from ruin, and to make for it, if he was permitted, a name in Astronomical science, second to no Observatory in the world ; and he acted with the deter- mined and guarded purpose, by every sacrifice of personal feeling, and by the strictest watch over every point of per- sonal conduct, and even over the manner of performing every duty, never to give the slightest just occasion of offence, or the slightest just ground for any outbreak of enmity against him but, on the contrary, if in any way possible, by all acts of courtesy, kindness and conciliation, to conquer and win the hearts of his opponents. Some of us are his willing witnesses how nobly he struggled to redeem this purpose, though encountering, from the day of his coming among us, a systematic course of hostility and annoyance, too plainly intended to starve him out, or drive him from his post, from sheer exhaustion of patience and of resolution. It is not for us to account for this hostility of so long standing the more inexcusable from the con- cealment attempted to be made under professions of respect and confidence. In spite of these professions, truth obliges us to declare our conviction, that from the hour Dr. Gould came here, a purpose was formed, in a kind of inner and secret Circle in the Board of Trustees, composed of not more, perhaps 4 26 than three, possibly only of two members, to bring about, sooner or later, the expulsion, or the forced resignation of Dr. Gould, from his Directorship ! We do not under- take to account for this hostility. That it existed from the moment when Dr. Gould set his foot in Albany, as resi- dent Director, we think is beyond all question. The real grounds of it have not been, and probably will never be, openly avowed ; the real motive even now burrows and conceals itself from view in the connection of its true origin, under a mass of complaints and charges never hav- ing had, as we are convinced, the beginning of a founda- tion, in truth or justice, and the investigation of which has only contributed to unfold and confirm the conclu- sion, that from the day Dr. Gould came to Albany to take charge of the Observatory, an original and fixed purpose existed in the inner and secret Circle of the ruling spirits in the Board of Trustees, that his career in that charge should be brought to the briefest possible conclusion. The proceedings and action of the Secret Circle in the Board of Trustees, first in getting the Resolution of the 4th of June passed by the Board, and then in all subse- quent measures, have been answerable to the original purpose, as we have stated it, and are not to be accounted for on any other supposition. That Resolution complained of a " want of harmony" between Dr. Gould and the Trustees, and of "constantly recurring difficulties" arising therefrom, and it submitted this complaint to the Scientific Council, with the declara- tion that " some new arrangement" had become necessary. Let it be remembered that this was the first time the Board had ever officially complained to the Scientific Council of " difficulties" or " want of harmony j" and that in point of fact, no "difficulties" or "want of harmony" hacl ever occurred upon which the Secret Circle of Trus- tees had thought it prudent or safe to found any com- plaint or movement whatever, until the appearance of 27 Dr. Gould's very proper and admirable .letter of May 31. No act or occurrence, then, previous to that letter, had made a " new arrangement" necessary, and it was on the appearance of that letter that the Secret Circle was roused to strike the blow, which we believe they had so long been meditating. The blow once struck, they resolved to make it final, and carry it out, with a high hand, to all its consequences. At that time the President's budget of charges had not been prepared, and we venture to say that by far the larger number of Trustees who voted for the Resolution of the 4th of June were advised for the first time in their lives of the main body of charges and com- plaints which the President had in reserve to prefer against Dr. Gould, when he produced his Manifesto, more than twenty days after the Resolution of the 4th of June had been passed. The purpose of the managers of this business could oiily be consummated by holding the action of the Board in the Resolution of the 4th of June to be in effect a dismissal of Dr. Gould, as Director, and by holding this action to be final and conclusive so conclusive that no power on earth should induce them to reconsider it. They knew they could not maintain their position and accomplish their purpose, if his continuance as Director, was to be treated as an open question, and the Scientific Council should be admitted before the Board of Trustees, in person or by communications, to present the results of their inves- tigations according to the simple truth of the whole case ; for it was just this simple truth of the whole case which a majority of the members appear never to have been permit- ted to know. It was necessary, therefore, to cut the whole matter short. No investigation was to be permitted. No defence was to be allowed. Propositions of conciliation were rejected. Arbitration was rejected. In no manner, and by no means, was the truth to be allowed to reach those members of the Board of Trustees who were relied on by 28 the managers to register their decrees. Dr. Gould had been thrown overboard with little apparent compunction, and if so much as a rope was attempted to be cast off by the Scientific Council to save him, it was resolved that they should follow, with as little ceremony. The proposition was made to them to consent to this sacrifice of their friend and associate to consent to let him go forth brand- ed with false and infamous charges, without a hearing, without investigation, without a word in his defence, as the sole condition on which they themselves should be allowed to hold further relations with the Board or with the Obser- vatory! Only one thing remained to them. They could not voluntarily abandon their post of duty. They were in possession of the Observatory, and in charge of its scientific conduct placed there under circumstances which pledged their services, with the most solemn and formal assent and engagement of the Trustees, to the donors and friends of the Observatory, and to the scientific world. Powerless to keep Dr. Gould in his position, and in relations with the Trus- tees, they resolved that they would, for the present, under- take to carry forward the work of the Observatory to which they stood so solemnly committed, by directing in person, each of them for one month successively, its scientific oper- ations. The Secret Circle were now brought to the point where their original purpose must be consummated by the last and boldest measure of all. They did not hesitate. They had no charges of incompetency ! or dishonesty ! to bring against these members of the Council ; but throwing them- selves on the naked authority of the Charter, which they might have appealed to with equal moral force if they had proposed to set fire to the Observatory buildings, they sent forth their decree of severance and banishment of Profes- sors Henry, Bache and Peirce from the Observatory, with an impotent threat of their prompt expulsion from the premises. The members of the Scientific Council need no word of commendation, and no word of defence, from us. The 29 country, to which they are so well known, is their guar- anty and shield. For Dr. Gould, a younger man,- and, though having already accomplished much, still struggling for great achievements, coming among us a stranger, and under circumstances appealing to the kindness, respect and sympathy of every generous mind, we feel that as citi- zens of Albany, as Americans, as lovers of truth and justice, as Christian men, we should be false to every duty and obligation which our humanity imposes upon us, if we did not, at least after what we now know, stand up by his side, along with his associates of the Scientific Council, to cover and protect him, with all that our opinions and characters may be worth, before the public, from the great wrong to which he has been subjected. We say deliber. ately, that in all our experience, we have scarcely known or heard of, at least in our country, and in our times, a parallel to the unmitigated wrong that has here been com- mitted, without the semblance of justification or excuse, on the professional and private character of an eminent and worthy man. It is due to the character of this city that it should not be made an altar for such sacrifices. For Dr. Gould's great and very superior qualifications as a Scientific man and a practical Astronomer, while his colleagues of the Scientific Council stand as his special and sufficient sponsors before the community, we do not be- lieve that a scientific man of fair character in either hem- isphere could be found who knows anything of him, who would not gladly join his testimony to theirs in this re- gard. Opposed to this, we have the judgment of the President of the Board of Trustees ! For Dr. Gould's personal qualities, we claim to be judges as well as others. Some of us know him well; many of us have had probably quite as much intercourse with him as any member of the Board of Trustees. And those of us who have enjoyed this advantage feel bound to take this occasion to declare, that it is a rare thing to 30 meet that happy combination of qualities, intellectual and moral, which go to make up in him a character of truly manly and noble proportions, and a true gentleman. This is our estimate of the man. This is the estimate in which he is held by his learned associates of the Scientific Council, and, we do not hesitate to add, by great numbers of eminent persons all over the learned and scientific world, and by as many others in all the walks and ranks of life, down to the most humble, as ever blessed the existence of any man of his age with their ad- miration and affection. "Arrogance, insolence and con- ceit" have no relation to a character like his ; and we believe it is no more in his nature to " offer gross and de- liberate insults" to any human being, treating him with even common decency, than it is in his, or any good man's nature, to offer an insult to his Maker. For Dr. Gould's personal integrity and honesty, we re- gard the attempt that has been made to impeach it, without a shadow of foundation, in the same light as we would an attempt, made from sheer malice or passion, to bring public suspicion upon the chastity of the purest wife and mother that the city contains. No city is fit to live in, no com- munity is fit to live in, no country is fit to live in, where personal reputation can be thus assailed, and the act meet with no public indignation, and no public rebuke. We know of nothing which could be more disastrous to all enterprises for the promotion of learning and science in our country, depending on private liberality or public countenance for support, and on the self-sacrificing labors of scientific men, than what has now occurred in relation to the Dudley Observatory. If some corrective for the mischief be not promptly applied, this Observatory is des- tined to become a byword and a hissing in the scientific world. In the practical result, the founder and principal benefactress, and the donors generally, will feel as if a great imposition had been practiced on them, and the 31 eminent persons who have undertaken its management will feel as if something worse than an imposition had been practiced upon them. We assume it as indisputable, that no scientific men, of any fair or trustworthy charac- ter, can be found to occupy the places from which persons so eminent and so unexceptionable as these, shall Lave been driven by such unwarrantable and disreputable means. No man could take a position thus vacated^ at the invitation of those who have thus made the vacancy, with- out an unworthy betrayal of the sacred brotherhood and cause of science, or without personal dishonor. Besides, we have the recorded statement of the President of the Board, that the Trustees cannot offer a dollar of pecuni- ary compensation to any Astronomer, certainly before 1860. If they can do so, then so gross a deception has been practised on the Scientific Council, as well as the public, or so strange an error has occurred, that no other man of honor would be likely to listen to any proposition they could make to him. After having accepted, and received for months, the services of Dr. Gould and his assistants, as a generous gratuity, expressly on the ground that they had no means with which to pay salaries, and should not have for two years ; and, besides this, after having put upon Dr. Gould the necessity of applying his own scanty means, to a very large amount, to the current and indispensable expenses of the Observatory a condi- tion of things submitted to, in order that he and his assistants might be enabled to continue their gratuitous services a burthen cast upon him, which was justifiable on no possible ground, but the utter want of funds in the hands of the Trustees, if justifiable on that after all this, unless, indeed, the grossest deception has been practised in this matter, or the strangest of all errors has occurred and even on such a supposition it seems too grave a farce for any men to play in the face of an intelligent community, for them to pretend to invite 32 any respectable man to take the place of Director of this Observatory, and ask him " to visit this city to make the necessary arrangements !" Certainly, the man- agers of this business must know, or they ought to know, that when the day comes, if come it shall, that the Scientific Council and the Directors of the Observatory must vacate their places in it, by their fiat, and by the treatment received at their hands, from that hour the Dudley Observatory will sink beneath contempt. It can receive no contributions to give to it more than a tempo- rary, spasmodic support, and the public will think of it, and speak of it, only with scorn. It is possible that the Dudley Observatory may be saved, if the Board of Trustees would close with the pro- position understood to be made, or about to be made, to them by the donors, to submit the whole subject of its difficulties to the arbitrament of several very eminent and unexceptionable gentlemen, as named in that propo- sition. Otherwise, we know of nothing now that can restore it to public favor, and to any possible usefulness, but the prompt and voluntary withdrawal of such of the Trustees, as shall be found unwilling, after the develop- ments and exposures which have been made, to co-operate with Prof. Henry, Prof. Bache, Prof. Peirce and Dr. Gould, in a manner to enable them to prosecute and per- form their proper duties to the Observatory, the donors, and the cause of science. This, or a thorough revision and alteration of, its very exceptionable Charter by the Legislature, seems to us to afford the only remaining grounds of hope for the Observatory. ALBANY. July Hth, 1858. S. VAN RENSSELAER. D. D. BARNARD. ERASTUS CORNING. J. B. PLUMB. JAMES EDWARDS. THOMAS HUN. ORLANDO MEADS. MASON F. COGSWELL. JOHN TAYLER COOPER. JOHN V. L. PRUYN. ISAAC VANDERPOEL, H.-PUMPELLY.