S. Shall I ever again gaze with wonder and delight from the great
window of your Observatory.
The body of the above letter is in the handwriting of an amanuensis,
but the signature and Postscript are in Sedgwick's handwriting. (Ed.)
* * * * *
1873
"Chronographic registration having been established at the Paris
Observatory, Mr Hilgard, principal officer of the American Coast
Survey, has made use of it for determining the longitude of Harvard
from Greenwich, through Paris, Brest, and St Pierre. For this purpose
Mr Hilgard's Transit Instrument was planted in the Magnetic Court. I
understand that the result does not sensibly differ from that obtained
by Mr Gould, through Valentia and Newfoundland.--It was known to the
scientific world that several of the original thermometers,
constructed by Mr Sheepshanks (in the course of his preparation of the
National Standard of Length) by independent calibration of the bores,
and independent determination of the freezing and boiling points on
arbitrary graduations, were still preserved at the Royal Observatory.
It was lately stated to me by M. Tresca, the principal officer of the
International Metrical Commission, that, in the late unhappy war in
Paris, the French original thermometers were destroyed; and M.
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