Daniel W. Baker

“ Bond is to be regarded not in the character of an employee, but a benefactor of the college; that his labors were deemed by those most familiar with them to be indispensable and invaluable, and that his friendship for the college, manifested in all ways, and especially in his declination of the liberal offers coming from Washington, was appreciated and honored. The date of Mr. Bond’s appointment as director of the observatory was Feb. 12, 1840, though the confirmation by the corporation was later. He was given the honorary degree of A.M., by Harvard in 1842. ”

“ A special encouragement to new enterprises at Harvard is in the munificent gift of $50,000, made within the year past by Miss Catherine W. Bruce of New York for the construction of a telescope of 24 inches aperture, to be used in photography. A contract for this instrument has been made. It is intended that its first use shall be to photograph maps of the fainter stars, and it is hoped that those as faint as the 16th magnitude can thus be represented. ”

“ In the early observations of Mr. Bond at Cambridge, priority was given to the work begun at Dorchester for the naval department. In the college record a considerable part of the routine is classed as meteorology, with reference, chiefly, to the earth’s magnetism. The scheme of observation in this department was, however, much broadened, and in this the observatory appears to have performed its first notable service to pure science and to have assumed a place that gave it international recognition. ”

“ Nothing of importance appears to have been done in this department thereafter until 1886, when the proposition of Mrs. Draper opened the way to investigation of spectra by aid of photography. For this the 11-inch photographic telescope, which had been used by Dr. Draper, was loaned by Mrs. Draper, who also met the expense of a new mounting and a special observatory building. A beginning was made with an eight-inch instrument, known as the Bache telescope. It is of the pattern described as the “doublet,” and offers the advantage of a large field of view. ”

“ The mechanical problem was to reduce the light of the planet as seen in the telescope to an equality with the light of one of the satellites as thus seen. Five or six different mechanics were employed to drill in a piece of metal a hole, making a true circle, and small enough to produce the equality sought for by sufficiently diminishing the light of the planet. ”

“ I suppose it would cause the astronomer royal to laugh could he see the first transit instrument used by us at Dorchester, a strip of brass nailed to the east end of the house, with a hole in it to see a fixed star and note its transit ”

“ Furthermore, what seems incredible at first thought, it appears to be demonstrated that the components of binary stars whose juxtaposition does not permit them to be separated in any telescope, may, by spectroscopic photography, be shown to be in revolution about each other. ”

“ Agreeably to the announcement of the annual report of Harvard College Observatory for 1877, as to photometry, a beginning was made by constructing a photometer suitable to be attached to the great telescope. Other photometers have been devised at different times for use independently. One of the earliest was applied during the year beginning Oct. 12, 1877, in measuring the light of all known satellites excepting the two inner ones of Uranus, which are too faint to be discerned, even by the great telescope. ”

“ Many interesting particulars of the early days of Harvard College observatory are given in the first volume of printed annals of the institution. In the reading an essential fact is to be kept in mind, the difference of the pecuniary standards of that and the present time. ”

“ In 1867 daily observations in terrestrial magnetism were made at the observatory for the purposes of the coast survey. In March, 1869, experiments for determination of longitudes were conducted on a continental scale, wire connection by relays being made with San Francisco. In these experiments apparatus which had been modified by Prof. Winlock was used and by this method, and also by another which was applied, it proved that the time of passage of a signal from Cambridge to San Francisco through the wire and six relays was very nearly three-quarters of a second. ”

“ An early application of photography in this investigation was in the direction of determining the color of stars, measuring their brightness by an independent method, picturing their spectra, exhibiting the effect of atmospheric absorption of light in a series of plates covering the period of a year, and ascertaining by images of stars trailed upon the plate, the clearness and steadiness of the atmosphere.
In 1887 the Boyden fund being available, the first step was taken in the important enterprise of giving a continental expansion to the work of the observatory. ”

“ Something practical in astronomy had always been taught in the college course. In this way, or possibly by Mr. Bond himself, the position of Harvard Hall on the college grounds had been determined. Thus, in a paper published by him in 1833 in the Memoirs of the American Academy, he gives the position of his observatory in Dorchester as “0°-3′-15′′ east of Harvard Hall in Cambridge.” ”

“ Wilson remarkable photographic results are already possessed at Cambridge in plates showing31 lunar surfaces, Saturn’s rings, Jupiter’s belts and the most brilliant of the nebulæ. That among them which is of the greatest scientific interest, as being a novelty, is the picture on a negative plate of the great spiral nebula of Orion. It is a Harvard discovery by the photographic method, and is quite other than that heretofore known as the great nebula in Orion. That is an object having a span of about half a degree. The new great nebula has a span of nearly 17 degrees ”

“ A considerable revenue has thus annually been derived. Other electrical apparatus of the observatory was modified and improved. A “switch-board,” the device of his predecessor was much elaborated in its mechanism, whereby the electrical current was made more available and all the principal instruments were connected at will with the chronographs.
In 1868 when he visited Europe he procured the apparatus of a meridian circle of the latest device, the lenses being made in Cambridge. In setting up the instrument he saw opportunity to introduce various improvements in mechanism. ”

“ In 1879, a photometer was devised for measuring the light of nebulæ, thus applying to these objects and to stars the same unit and scale. In 1881, photometric29 observations of certain bright parts of the moon, were made for the Selenographical Society of England, the particular parts being selected by that society. It thus was shown that the lunar scale of light in common use may be closely expressed in terms of stellar magnitude, each degree of the lunar scale answering to six-tenths of a magnitude. Photometry has been very extensively applied at Harvard in study of variable stars. ”

“ That this experience with the comet was a fortunate turning point in Mr. Bond’s career is evinced by Prof. Farrar’s genial recognition in the paper published in the organ of American Science, where he might excusably have ignored so crude a record as that which was the best Mr. Bond could supply, and by the appearance not long afterwards, at the west end of the Hawes house in Dorchester, of a loaned telescope belonging to Harvard College. ”

“ He began a paper on the nebula in Orion, which he did not live to complete, though during his prolonged last illness he continued his labors upon it, and dictated to an amanuensis long after strength to write had gone from him.
This paper was afterwards finished by Prof. T. H. Safford, then of Harvard, now of Williams College observatory. A biographer says of Mr. Bond: “Science to him was not a pastime but a serious calling, to be pursued with the utmost conscientiousness and singleness of purpose. ”

“ The observer from the beginning had been Prof. William A. Rogers. He resigned his position as assistant professor in the observatory in 1886, but continued to serve as editor of the published results. The whole series makes half a dozen or more volumes of the annals. The European supervisors of the general undertaking, well pleased, apparently, with the early instalments of manuscript returns, assigned to Harvard the work of reobservation of another zone, that between 9° 50′ south and 14° 10′ south. This work is still in progress. Each zone comprises about 8000 stars or nearly 17,000 in all. ”

“ The work in progress in Peru will give other series of plates offering equal facilities for the study at Cambridge of that part of the sky which is beyond our southern horizon. Some of the results which these extensive investigations of the light, the spectra and the positions of the stars will yield will anticipate the doings of other great observatories of the world. But there is no necessary limit at stars of the magnitudes named; there will remain other worlds to conquer. ”

“ As there are four satellites and as the plane of their orbits is nearly the same as that of the planet itself, eclipses are frequent. The plan proposed the observation of all these eclipses visible during a revolution of Jupiter around the sun, a period of about 12 years. The work was begun June 23, 1878, and has been regularly pursued. The final result will be of the highest value in that, among its utilities it will permit a new and independent computation to be made of the earth’s distance from the sun, which distance is a prime factor in theoretical astronomy. ”

“ There are suggestions of both the modern and the antique world in the statement that in this first experience the electrical apparatus of a department of the institution founded by John Harvard, was connected with like apparatus in an observatory in the garden of Peter Stuyvesant in New York city. These electrical experiments of the coast survey were begun as early as 1844, between Washington and Baltimore. ”

“ Like pecuniary restrictions continued until 1879, when a subscription was completed providing for the institution, $5000 annually for five years. Since then much larger gifts have been bestowed and the instrumental equipment, in recent years especially, has been whatever the latest demands or suggestions of science called for; the observatory staff has been augmented from time to time, till it now numbers about 40 persons, and the field of observation has been extended to include the southern hemisphere of stars. ”

“ Alger to cast a stand for the transit instrument, a small one, which I think belonged to Harvard College. From this time he began to live among the stars.”
The facts thus recorded of the beginning of Mr. Bond’s career show his zeal and watchfulness as an amateur in astronomy, and that up to the date of the comet’s appearance, and later, he had no personal acquaintance with men of science in the vicinity, since he informed none of them of what he had seen. ”

“ Farrar and Tutor Clapp as those from whom he received most encouragement to continue the cultivation of astronomy. Upon his friendly intercourse with the eminent mathematician and astronomer first named he often dwelt with peculiar pleasure and warmth of feeling.” The name of one other of the godfathers of the young scientist is entitled to be mentioned, that of Josiah Quincy. The lady above quoted gives an account of the setting up of the first telescope at Dorchester by her brother, and says that through it could be seen the satellites of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. ”

“ There was none in the world that filled all the requirements, and Prof. Bond invented and made one. It is in use, unchanged, to this day, and by means of its ingeniously combined wheels, cogs and pulleys the17 observer can quickly and easily place himself anywhere along the vertical quarter circle and horizontal full circle traversed by the eye-piece of the telescope.
Prior to 1845 a transfer of 12 chronometers to and from Greenwich, Eng., had been made by Prof. Bond and Commodore Owen, for the determination of the longitude of the observatory. ”

“ Here, as one of his brief biographers remarks, “no eclipse or occultation escaped him, though occupied in business during the day in Boston,” and here Mr. Quincy found him in 1839, busy in his work for the Navy Department. The period which had elapsed since the setting of the granite block and the poising upon it of the borrowed telescope had been for Mr. Bond one of constant and rapid advance in the astronomer’s art. The Cottage street observatory was built about the year 1823. ”

“ Bond does not appear, but, at any rate, William was made a member of the firm about the date of his majority, and forthwith the clockmaking business was expanded to include the rating, repairing and making of chronometers. Astronomy could now go hand in hand with “business.” He must have had the means of ascertaining the true local time before he was himself owner of an instrument 11 suited to that purpose. ”

“ It had the highest award of the Massachusetts Mechanic Association, a gold medal. It was adopted at the Greenwich observatory soon after Mr. Bond’s exhibition of his model, and speedily throughout Europe.
Soon after the electrical experiments of 1848 at the observatory the wire was put into use to transmit to Boston and different railway points, signals giving the true local time, these signals being electrically responsive to the movement of an astronomical clock in the observatory, the method of transmission being that of the “circuit interrupter.” ”

“ Experience18 proved eventually the apprehension to have been groundless; but Prof. Bond’s suggestion avoided any liability of the kind by proposing that an astronomical clock be made for the purpose.
In August, 1848, he received authority to have such a clock made at the expense of the coast survey. Reverting to the matter in a subsequent annual report, Prof. Bond says: “I caused such a clock to be made, and it is found to answer perfectly the intended purpose. ”

“ The purpose of the expedition 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. Having, after much delay, got an adequate appropriation, the naval department employed the best available talent of the country for the conduct of the enterprise. ”