Edward Everett - The Uses of Astronomy
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Edward Everett >> The Uses of Astronomy
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THE USES OF ASTRONOMY.
AN ORATION
Delivered at Albany, on the 28th of July, 1856
BY
EDWARD EVERETT,
ON THE
OCCASION OF THE INAUGURATION OF THE DUDLEY
ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY,
WITH A
CONDENSED REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS,
AND AN ACCOUNT OF THE
DEDICATION OF NEW YORK STATE GEOLOGICAL HALL.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY ROSS & TOUSEY,
103 NASSAU STREET.
1856.
A NOTE EXPLANATORY.
The undersigned ventures to put forth this report of Mr.
EVERETT'S Oration, in connection with a condensed account of the
Inauguration of the Dudley Observatory, and the Dedication of the
New State Geological Hall, at Albany,--in the hope that the
demand which has exhausted the newspaper editions, may exhaust
this as speedily as possible; not that he is particularly
tenacious of a reward for his own slight labors, but because he
believes that the extensive circulation of the record of the two
events so interesting and important to the cause of Science will
exercise a beneficial influence upon the public mind. The effort
of the distinguished Statesman who has invested Astronomy with
new beauties, is the latest and one of the most brilliant of his
compositions, and is already wholly out of print, though scarcely
a month has elapsed since the date of its delivery. The account
of the proceedings at Albany during the Ceremonies of
Inauguration is necessarily brief, but accurate, and is
respectfully submitted to the consideration of the reader.
A. MAVERICK.
NEW YORK, _October 1, 1856._
TWO NEW INSTITUTIONS OF SCIENCE;
AND
THE SCENES WHICH ATTENDED THEIR CHRISTENING.
In the month of August last, two events took place in the city of
Albany, which have more than an ephemeral interest. They occurred in
close connection with the proceedings of a Scientific Convention, and
the memory of them deserves to be cherished as a recollection of the
easy way in which Science may be popularized and be rendered so
generally acceptable that the people will cry, like Oliver Twist, for
more. It is the purpose of this small publication to embody, in a form
more durable than that of the daily newspaper, the record of proceedings
which have so near a relation to the progress of scientific research. A
marked feature in the ceremonies was the magnificent Oration of the Hon.
EDWARD EVERETT, inaugurating the Dudley Observatory of Albany; and it is
believed that the reissue of that speech in its present form will be
acceptable to the admirers of that distinguished gentleman, not less
than to the lovers of Science, who hung with delight upon his words.
THE DEDICATION OF THE GEOLOGICAL HALL.
On Wednesday, August 27, 1856, the State Geological Hall of New York was
dedicated with appropriate ceremonies. For the purpose of affording
accommodation to the immense crowds of people who, it was confidently
anticipated, would throng to this demonstration and that of the
succeeding day, at which Mr. EVERETT spoke, a capacious Tent was
arranged with care in the center of Academy Park, on Capitol Hill; and
under its shelter the ceremonies of the inauguration of both
institutions were conducted without accident or confusion; attended on
the first day by fully three thousand persons, and on the second by a
number which may be safely computed at from five to seven thousand.
The announcement that Hon. WM. H. SEWARD would be present at the
dedication of the Geological Hall, excited great interest among the
citizens; but the hope of his appearance proved fallacious. His place
was occupied by seven picked men of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, one of whom (Prof. HENRY) declared his inability
to compute the problem why seven men of science were to be considered
equal to one statesman. The result justified the selections of the
committee, and although the Senator was not present, the seven
Commoners of Science made the occasion a most notable one by the flow of
wit, elegance of phrase, solidity and cogency of argument, and rare
discernment of natural truths, with which their discourse was garnished.
The members of the American Association marched in procession to the
Tent, from their place of meeting in the State Capitol. On the stage
were assembled many distinguished gentlemen, and in the audience were
hundreds of ladies. GOV. CLARK and Ex-Governors HUNT and SEYMOUR, of New
York, Sir WM. LOGAN, of Canada, Hon. GEORGE BANCROFT, and others as well
known as these, were among the number present. The tent was profusely
decorated. Small banners in tri-color were distributed over the entire
area covered by the stage, and adorned the wings. The following
inscriptions were placed over the front of the rostrum,--that in honor
of "_The Press_" occupying a central position:
GEOLOGY. THE PRESS.
METEOROLOGY. MINERALOGY.
METALLURGY. ETHNOLOGY.
ASTRONOMY.
The following were arranged in various positions on the right and left:
CHEMISTRY. TELEGRAPH.
PHYSIOLOGY. LETTERS.
CONCHOLOGY. HYDROLOGY.
PALAEONTOLOGY. ZOOLOGY.
MICROSCOPY. ICHTHYOLOGY.
ART. MANUFACTURES.
STEAM. AGRICULTURE.
COMMERCE. PHYSICS.
SCIENCE. ANATOMY.
NAVIGATION. BOTANY.
The proceedings of the day were opened with prayer by Rev. GEO. W.
BETHUNE, D.D., of Brooklyn.
Hon. GARRIT Y. LANSING, of Albany, then introduced Professor LOUIS
AGASSIZ, of Cambridge, Mass., who was the first of the "seven men of
science" to entertain his audience, always with the aid of the
inevitable black-board, without which the excellent Professor would be
as much at a loss as a chemist without a laboratory. Professor AGASSIZ
spoke for an hour, giving his views of a new theory of animal
development. He began by saying:--
We are here to inaugurate the Geological Hall, which has grown
out of the geological survey of the State. To make the occasion
memorable, a distinguished statesman of your own State, and Mr.
FRANK C. GRAY, were expected to be present and address you. The
pressure of public duties has detained Mr. SEWARD, and severe
sickness has detained Mr. GRAY. I deeply lament that the occasion
is lost to you to hear my friend Mr. GRAY, who is a devotee to
science, and as warm-hearted a friend as ever I knew. Night
before last I was requested to assist in taking their place--I,
who am the most unfit of men for the post. I never made a speech.
I have addressed learned bodies, but I lack that liberty of
speech--the ability to present in finished style, and with that
rich imagery which characterize the words of the orator, the
thoughts fitting to such an occasion as this. He would limit
himself, he continued, to presenting some motives why the
community should patronize science, and foster such institutions
as this. We scientific men regard this as an occasion of the
highest interest, and thus do not hesitate to give the sanction
of the highest learned body of the country as an indorsement of
the liberality of this State. The geological survey of New York
has given to the world a new nomenclature. No geologist can,
hereafter, describe the several strata of the earth without
referring to it. Its results, as recorded in your published
volumes, are treasured in the most valuable libraries of the
world. They have made this city famous; and now, when the
scientific geologist lands on your shore, his first question is,
"Which is the way to Albany? I want to see your fossils." But
Paleontology is only one branch of the subject, and many others
your survey has equally fostered.
He next proceeded to show that organized beings were organized
with reference to a plan, which the relations between different
animals, and between different plants, and between animals and
plants, everywhere exhibit;--drew sections of the body of a fish,
and of the bird, and of man, and pointed out that in each there
was the same central back-bone, the cavity above and the ribbed
cavity below the flesh on each side, and the skin over
all--showing that the maker of each possessed the same
thought--followed the same plan of structure. And upon that plan
He had made all the kinds of quadrupeds, 2,000 in number, all the
kinds of birds, 7,000 in number, all of the reptiles, 2,000 to
3,000 in number, all the fish, 10,000 to 12,000 in number. All
their forms may be derived as different expressions of the same
formula. There are only four of these great types; or, said he,
may I not call them the four tunes on which Divinity has played
the harmonies that have peopled, in living and beautiful reality,
the whole world?
PROFESSOR HITCHCOCK ON REMINISCENCES.
ERASTUS C. BENEDICT, Esq. of New York, introduced Prof. HITCHCOCK, of
Amherst, as a gentleman whose name was very familiar, who had laid
aside, voluntarily, the charge of one of the largest colleges in New
England, but who could never lay aside the honors he had earned in the
literature and science of geology.
After a few introductory observations, Prof. HITCHCOCK said:--
This, I believe, is the first example in which a State Government
in our country has erected a museum for the exhibition of its
natural resources, its mineral and rock, its plants and animals,
living and fossil. And this seems to me the most appropriate spot
in the country for placing the first geological hall erected by
the Government; for the County of Albany was the district where
the first geological survey was undertaken, on this side of the
Atlantic, and, perhaps, the world. This was in 1820, and ordered
by that eminent philanthropist, Stephen Van Rensselaer, who,
three years later, appointed Prof. Eaton to survey, in like
manner, the whole region traversed by the Erie Canal. This was
the commencement of a work, which, during the last thirty years,
has had a wonderful expansion, reaching a large part of the
States of the Union, as well as Canada, Nova Scotia, and New
Brunswick, and, I might add, several European countries, where
the magnificent surveys now in progress did not commence till
after the survey of Albany and Rensselaer Counties. How glad are
we, therefore, to find on this spot the first Museum of
Economical Geology on this side of the Atlantic! Nay, embracing
as it does all the department of Natural History, I see in it
more than a European Museum of Economical Geology, splendid
though they are. I fancy, rather, that I see here the germ of a
Cis-Atlantic British Museum, or Garden of Plants.
North Carolina was the first State that ordered a geological
survey; and I have the pleasure of seeing before me the gentleman
who executed it, and in 1824-5 published a report of 140 pages. I
refer to Professor Olmstead, who, though he has since won
brighter laurels in another department of science, will always be
honored as the first commissioned State geologist in our land.
Of the New York State Survey he said:--
This survey has developed the older fossiliferous rocks, with a
fullness and distinctness unknown elsewhere. Hence European
savans study the New York Reports with eagerness. In 1850, as I
entered the Woodwardian Museum, in the University of Cambridge,
in England, I found Professor McCoy busy with a collection of
Silurian fossils before him, which he was studying with Hall's
first volume of Paleontology as his guide; and in the splendid
volumes, entitled _British Paleozoric Rocks and Fossils_, which
appeared last year as the result of those researches, I find
Professor Hall denominated the great American Paleontologist. I
tell you, Sir, that this survey has given New York a reputation
throughout the learned world, of which she may well be proud. Am
I told that it will, probably, cost half a million? Very well.
The larger the sum, the higher will be the reputation of New York
for liberality; and what other half million expended in our
country, has developed so many new facts or thrown so much light
upon the history of the globe, or won so world-wide and enviable
a reputation?
And of Geological Surveys in general:--
In regard to this matter of geological surveys, I can hardly
avoid making a suggestion here. So large a portion of our country
has now been examined, more or less thoroughly, by the several
State governments, that it does seem to me the time has come when
the National government should order a survey--geological,
zoological, and botanical--of the whole country, on such a
liberal and thorough plan as the surveys in Great Britain are now
conducted; in the latter country it being understood that at
least thirty years will be occupied in the work. Could not the
distinguished New York statesman who was to have addressed us
to-day be induced, when the present great struggle in which he is
engaged shall have been brought to a close, by a merciful
Providence, to introduce this subject, and urge it upon Congress?
And would it not be appropriate for the American Association for
the Advancement of Science to throw a petition before the
government for such an object? Or might it not, with the consent
of the eminent gentleman who has charge of the Coast Survey, be
connected therewith, as it is with the Ordnance Survey in Great
Britain.
The history of the American Association was then given:--
Prof. Mather, I believe, through Prof. Emmons, first suggested to
the New-York Board of Geologists in November, 1838, in a letter
proposing a number of points for their consideration. I quote
from him the following paragraph relating to the meeting. As to
the credit he has here given me of having personally suggested
the subject, I can say only that I had been in the habit for
several years of making this meeting of scientific men a sort of
hobby in my correspondence with such. Whether others did the
same, I did not then, and do not now know. Were this the proper
place, I could go more into detail on this point; but I will
merely quote Prof. Mather's language to the Board:--
* * * * "Would it not be well to suggest the propriety of a
meeting of Geologists and other scientific men of our country at
some central point next fall,--say at New-York or Philadelphia?
There are many questions in our Geology that will receive new
light from friendly discussion and the combined observations of
various individuals who have noted them in different parts of our
country. Such a meeting has been suggested by Prof. Hitchcock;
and to me it seems desirable. It would undoubtedly be an
advantage not only to science but to the several surveys that are
now in progress and that may in future be authorized. It would
tend to make known our scientific men to each other personally,
give them more confidence in each other, and cause them to
concentrate their observation on those questions that are of
interest in either a scientific or economical point of view. More
questions may be satisfactorily settled in a day by oral
discussion in such a body, than a year by writing and
publication."[A]
[Footnote A: In the letter alluded to, on examination, we
discover another passage bearing on the point, which, owing to
the Professor's modesty we suspect, he did not read. Prof. Mather
adds. "You, so far as I know, first suggested the matter of such
an Association. I laid the matter before the Board of Geologists
of New-York, specifying some of the advantages that might be
expected to result; and Prof. Vanuxem probably made the motion
before the Board in regard to it."]
Though the Board adopted the plan of a meeting, various causes
delayed the first over till April, 1840, when we assembled in
Philadelphia, and spent a week in most profitable and pleasant
discussion, and the presentation of papers. Our number that year
was only 18, because confined almost exclusively to the State
geologists; but the next year, when we met again in Philadelphia,
and a more extended invitation was given, about eighty were
present; and the members have been increasing to the present
time. But, in fact, those first two meetings proved the type, in
all things essential, of all that have followed. The principal
changes have been those of expansion and the consequent
introduction of many other branches of science with their eminent
cultivators. In 1842, we changed the name to that of the
Association of American Geologists and Naturalists; and in 1847,
to that of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science. I trust it has not yet reached its fullest development,
as our country and its scientific men multiply, and new fields of
discovery open.
Prof. H. said of this particular occasion:--
We may be quite sure that this Hall will be a center of deep
interest to coming generations. Long after we shall have passed
away will the men of New-York, as they survey these monuments,
feel stimulated to engage in other noble enterprises by this work
of their progenitors, and from many a distant part of the
civilized world will men come here to solve their scientific
questions, and to bring far-off regions into comparison with
this. New-York, then, by her liberal patronage, has not only
acquired an honorable name among those living in all civilized
lands, but has secured the voice of History to transmit her fame
to far-off generations.
SIR WILLIAM LOGAN ASKS "THE WAY TO ALBANY."
Sir WILLIAM E. LOGAN, of Canada, in a brief speech acknowledged the
services rendered by the New-York Survey to Canada. He should manifest
ingratitude if he declined to unite in the joyful occasion of
inaugurating the Museum which was to hold forever the evidence of the
truth of its published results. The Survey of Canada had been ordered,
and the Commission of five years twice renewed; and the last time, the
provision for it was more than doubled. It happened to him, as Mr.
Agassiz had said: after crossing the ocean first, the first thing he
asked was, "Which is the way to Albany?" and when he arrived here, he
found that with the aid of Prof. Hall's discoveries, he had only to take
up the different formations as he had left them on the boundary line,
and follow them into Canada. It was both a convenience and a necessity
to adopt the New-York nomenclature, which was thus extended over an area
six times as large as New-York. In Paris he heard De Vernier using the
words Trenton and Niagara, as if they were household words. He was
delighted to witness the impatience with which Barron inquired when the
remaining volumes of the Paleontology of New-York would be published.
Your Paleontological reputation, said he, has made New-York known, even
among men not scientific, all over Europe. I hope you will not stop
here, but will go on and give us in equally thorough, full, and
magnificent style, the character of the Durassic and Cretaceous
formations.
PROFESSOR HENRY ON DUTCHMEN.
Professor HENRY was at a loss to know by what process they had arrived
at the conclusion that seven men of science must be substituted to fill
the place of one distinguished statesman whom they had expected to hear.
He prided himself on his Albany nativity. He was proud of the old Dutch
character, that was the substratum of the city. The Dutch are hard to be
moved, but when they do start their momentum is not as other men's in
proportion to the velocity, but as the square of the velocity. So when
the Dutchman goes three times as fast, he has nine times the force of
another man. The Dutchman has an immense potentia agency, but it wants a
small spark of Yankee enterprise to touch it off. In this strain the
Professor continued, making his audience very merry, and giving them a
fine chance to express themselves with repeated explosions of laughter.
PROFESSOR DAVIES ON THE PRACTICAL NATURE OF SCIENCE.
Prof. CHARLES DAVIES was introduced by EX-GOVERNOR SEYMOUR, and spoke
briefly, but humorously and very much to the point, in defense of the
practical character of scientific researches. He said that to one
accustomed to speak only on the abstract quantities of number and space,
this was an unusual occasion, and this an unusual audience; and inquired
how he could discuss the abstract forms of geometry, when he saw before
him, in such profusion, the most beautiful real forms that Providence
has vouchsafed to the life of man. He proposed to introduce and develop
but a single train of thought--the unchangeable connection between what
in common language is called the theoretical and practical, but in more
technical phraseology, the ideal and the actual. The actual, or true
practical, consists in the uses of the forces of nature, according to
the laws of nature; and here we must distinguish between it and the
empirical, which uses, or attempts to use, those forces, without a
knowledge of the laws. The true practical, therefore, is the result, or
actual, of an antecedent ideal. The ideal, full and complete, must exist
in the mind before the actual can be brought forth according to the laws
of science. Who, then, are the truly practical men of our age? Are they
not those who are engaged most laboriously and successfully in
investigating the great laws? Are they not those who are pressing out
the boundaries of knowledge, and conducting the mind into new and
unexplored regions, where there may yet be discovered a California of
undeveloped thought? Is not the gentleman from Massachusetts (Professor
Agassiz) the most practical man in our country in the department of
Natural History, not because he has collected the greatest number of
specimens, but because he has laid open to us all the laws of the animal
kingdom? Are the formulas written on the black-board by the gentleman
from Cambridge (Prof. Pierce) of no practical value, because they cannot
be read by the uninstructed eye? A single line may contain the elements
of the motions of all the heavenly bodies; and the eye of science,
taking its stand-point at the center of gravity of the system, will see
in the equation the harmonious revolutions of all the bodies which
circle the heavens. It is such labors and such generalizations that have
rendered his name illustrious in the history of mathematical science. Is
it of no practical value that the Chief of the Coast Survey (Prof.
Bache), by a few characters written upon paper, at Washington, has
determined the exact time of high and low tide in the harbor of Boston,
and can determine, by a similar process, the exact times of high and low
water at every point on the surface of the globe? Are not these results,
the highest efforts of science, also of the greatest practical utility?
And may we not, then, conclude that _there is nothing truly practical
which is not the consequence of an antecedent ideal_?
Science is to art what the great fly-wheel and governor of a
steam-engine are to the working part of the machinery--it guides,
regulates, and controls the whole. Science and art are inseparably
connected; like the Siamese Twins, they cannot be separated without
producing the death of both.
How, then, are we to regard the superb specimens of natural history,
which the liberality, the munificence; and the wisdom of our State have
collected at the Capitol? They are the elements from which we can here
determine all that belongs to the Natural History of our State; and may
we not indulge the hope, that science and genius will come here, and,
striking them with a magic wand, cause the true practical to spring into
immortal life?