Appropriate remarks were then made relative to the services, character, and virtues of the deceased, by Messrs. Trumbull, Hamlin, Parker, and the Chancellor, Chief Justice Chase. On motion of Mr. Trumbull the following resolutions were adopted: Resolved, That the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution deeply mourn the loss of their distinguished fellow-regent, William Pitt Fessenden. Resolved, That in the death of Mr. Fessenden our country has lost a refined and influential citizen, the Senate of the United States an able, judicious, honest statesman, and this Institution an active, intelligent, and learned Regent. Resolved, That we sincerely condole with the afflicted family of Mr. Fessenden, and offer to them our heartfelt sympathy in their great bereavement. Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be communicated by the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution to the family of the deceased. Resolved, That Chief Justice Chase be requested to prepare a eulogy on Mr. Fessenden, for insertion in the journal of the Board of Regents. General Delafield in behalf of the Executive Committee, stated that they deemed it highly important for the interests of the Institution in the promotion of science, and due to the secretary for his long and devoted services, that he should visit Europe to consult with the savans and societies of Great Britain and the continent, and he therefore hoped that a leave of absence would be granted to Professor Henry for several months, and that an allowance be made for his expenses. On motion of Dr. Maclean, it was unanimously Resolved, That Professor Henry, Secretary of the Institution, be authorized to visit Europe in behalf of the interests of the Smithsonian Institution, and that he be granted from three to six months leave of absence, and two thousand dollars for traveling expenses for this purpose. Judge Poland moved, that in consideration of the extra services which had been rendered by Mr. Rhees, chief clerk, since the death of Mr. Randolph, bookkeeper of the Institution, in auditing and keeping the accounts for the last three years, he be allowed $350, in addition to $250 already received, or $200 per year. This proposition was advocated by the secretary, who considered it just not only in regard to the particular services in question, but also for his efficiency in the conduct of the general business of the establishment. The motion was agreed to. Adjourned to meet on the 10th instant, at 7 o'clock. WASHINGTON, D. C., February 10, 1870. A meeting of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. was held on Thursday, February 10, 1870, at 7 o'clock p. m., at the Institution. Present, Messrs. Chase, Trumbull, Hamlin, Davis, Garfield, Poland, Delafield, Parker, Bowen, and the Secretary. The Chancellor took the chair. The minutes were read and approved. Professor Henry presented his annual report, which was accepted. On motion of General Garfield, it was Resolved, That the Executive Committee and the secretary be directed to prepare a detailed statement of all the money expended on the museum during the past year, distinguishing between the items directly and exclusively chargeable to the care of the collections of the Govern ment, and those of a contingent or indirect character. Mr. Hamlin presented the following, which were adopted: Having learned that the chief clerk of this Institution, Mr. William J. Rhees, is about to resign the office he has filled for seventeen years, to engage in an active business enterprise Resolved, That the Board of Regents highly appreciate his worth as a man, and his services as an officer of this Institution. Resolved, That while they regret his resignation of an office which he has filled with honor to himself and advantage to the Institution, they hope that he may be equally successful in the career on which he is about to enter, and that a copy of these resolutions be presented to him by the secretary. The Board then adjourned to meet at the call of the secretary. [NOTE. After this meeting the annual report was submitted to Congress and ordered to be printed; therefore, the subsequent proceedings of the Board for the session of the beginning of 1870 will be found in the next annual report.-J. H.] The object of this appendix is to illustrate the operations of the Institution by reports of lectures and extracts from correspondence, as well as to furnish information of a character suited especially to the meteorological observers and other persons interested in the promotion of knowledge. KEPLER: HIS LIFE AND WORKS. BY M. BERTRAND, Member of the French Academy of Sciences.* [Translated for the Smithsonian Institution by C. A. Alexander.] The highest laws of the physical world have been established by geometers; the hypotheses on which those laws rest acquire real importance only after having been submitted to their decision; and yet the progress of natural philosophy would have been impossible if the great men to whom they are due, imbued only with a geometrical spirit, had regarded only its inflexible rigor. Let us imagine a geometer initiated in the most elevated theories of abstract science. I speak not merely of a disciple of Euclid and Archimedes, but an intelligent reader of Jacobi and of Abel; and let us suppose that, while a stranger to every idea of astronomy, he should undertake to penetrate by his own independent efforts the general structure of the universe and the arrangement of its parts. Let us place him, moreover, in the most favorable conditions; let us admit that, free in spirit as Copernicus, he reposes not in the deceptive representatious of the senses which, veiling from us the movements of the earth, have caused its immobility to be so long regarded as an axiom: what impossibilities will present themselves to his imagination! Borne along by an unknown movement, perceiving no fixed direction, no stable basis on which to rely for the determination of distances, he finds himself without data for the solution of the problem. Our geometer will attain, perhaps, to a conception of our own incommensurable littleness; but, perceiving no certain route, he will stop short by asserting in the name of a science which he believes infallible, because it leaves nothing to hazard, that, whatever the genius of man and the resources with which art may endow his organs, our path through space is to him as undiscoverable as would be that of a grain of dust borne on the wind to the animalcules which inhabit it. Happily Pascal has gone too far in asserting that what transcends geometry lies beyond our reach. This discouraging appreciation takes no account of a sentiment implanted in the depths of the human soul; a sentiment which sustained Copernicus after having inspired Pytha goras. Outside of all demonstration, in effect man believes in the harmony of the universe and the simplicity of its mechanism; and, although imagination stands in strong contrast to geometry, the history of astronomy presents them to us united in a strict alliance; the former sustained by well-regulated reason, in some sort outstripping truth in order to reveal, as if by intuition, the beauty and general order of the system of worlds; the latter exerting its powers to test the true and the false, and by separating one from the other, finally to arrive at certainty. The situation of the astronomer who seeks to divine the symmetrical and regular order of the celestial bodies, presents a certain degree of analogy with that of the philologist who, with unknown characters before *Mémoires de l'Académie de Sciences de l'Institut Impérial de France, t. xxxv, 1865. |