PROFESSOR ROBERT WHITE McFARLAND'S
HISTORY OF THE ASTRONOMICAL PIER
AT MIAMI UNIVERSITY
A recent issue of the Alumni News
Letter of Miami
University published the history of the
Astronomical
Pier at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio,
as it was writ-
ten by Professor Robert White
McFarland, with a quill
pen in 1904, and sent to Dr. Clyde
Fisher, an alumnus
of that institution, and now curator of
astronomy, and
visual instruction at the American
Museum of Natural
History, New York City. Following is
the contribu-
tion of Professor McFarland:
THE ASTRONOMICAL PIER
Forty or fifty yards southwestwardly
from the south door
of the main building there is a stone
pier about three feet high
and about two feet square. Almost every
stranger who sees it
asks what it was for. This article will
give answer and in addition
thereto will state some general
historical facts pertaining to the
subject.
The first third of the last century had
passed before any
marked attention was given to astronomy
in the United States.
From 1835 to 1840 there was a general
waking up on the subject.
In the former year there was not a
single pedestal for a transit
telescope on this continent. An extract
or two may serve to
make the case clear. So far as known to
me the first suggestion
of an observatory was made by Mr.
Hassler, a Swiss mathema-
tician, who had settled in this country.
The communication was
laid before Congress in 1807 by Albert Gallatin, a
member of the
President's cabinet, I think. But the
proposition met with no
favor and Mr. Hassler had proposed to
have a coast survey in-
stituted and the observatory was to be
used in connection with
that undertaking. About ten years later
a beginning was made
in the survey and Mr. Hassler was put in
charge of the work. But
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