when he has and as he has; and has thus put it in our power to convey to him the assurance of our heartfelt gratitude; of our high sense of the value of his gift; and of the fidelity with which, regarding it as a great trust, it shall be preserved and used, so as best to promote the wise and liberal objects of the donation.

In taking my seat, sir, I beg leave to submit the motion, that a committee of five be appointed by the Chair to consider and report immediately what measures it may be expedient for the society to adopt, in reference to the communication from the president.

After some conversation, this resolution was adopted, and the following persons were named of the committee: Hon. Edward Everett, Chief Justice Shaw, Hon. Judge White, Hon. Nathan Appleton, and Rev. Dr. Lothrop.

The committee retired, and after a short time reported the following resolutions:

Whereas, It has this day been announced to the Massachusetts Historical Society by the president, at a special meeting of said Society convened for that purpose, that the venerable Thomas Dowse of Cambridge, has, during the past week, presented to the Society his whole noble collection of rare and valuable books, a catalogue of which was at the same time laid upon the table by the president, upon the single condition that they shall be preserved together for ever, in a separate room, and shall only be used in said room. Now, therefore,

Resolved, unanimously, by the Massachusetts Historical Society, that they highly approve of the acts of the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, their president, in his conferences and dealings with our distinguished benefactor, Mr. Dowse, in reference to this munificent donation, and that they do adopt, ratify, and confirm all his assurances and acts in receiving the said donation, in the name, and for the use and benefit of the Society; and that the said donation is gratefully accepted by the Society, upon the terms prescribed by the liberal and enlightened donor, and that said collection shall be sacredly preserved together in a room by itself, to be used only in said room.

Resolved, That the collection of books thus presented and accepted, shall be known always as the Dowse Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and that an appropriate book-plate be procured, with this or a similar inscription to be placed in each volume of the collection.

Resolved, That this Society entertain the deepest sense of the liberality and munificence of Mr. Dowse in making such a disposition of the library, which he has collected with such care and at such cost during a long lifetime, as shall secure it for the benefit of posterity, and for the honor of his native State, and that they offer to Mr. Dowse in return, their most grateful and heart-felt acknowledgments for so noble a manifestation of his confidence in the society, and of his regard for the cause of literature and learning.

Resolved, That the Massachusetts Historical Society respectfully and earnestly ask the favor of Mr. Dowse, that he will allow his portrait to be taken for the Society, to be hung for ever in the room which shall be appropriated to his library, so that the person of the liberal donor may always be associated with the collection which he so much loved and cherished, and that the form as well as the name of so wise, and ardent, and munificent a patron of learning and literature, may be always connected with the result of his labors, at once as a just memorial of himself, and an animating example to others.

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions duly attested by all the officers of the Society, be communicated to Mr. Dowse by the president, with the cordial wishes of every member that the best blessings of heaven may rest upon the close of his long, honorable, and useful life.

THE USES OF ASTRONOMY.*

FELLOW-CITIZENS OF ALBANY,

ASSEMBLED as we are under your auspices in this ancient and hospitable city, for an object indicative of a highly advanced stage of scientific culture, it is natural in the first place to cast an historical glance at the past. It seems almost to surpass belief, though an unquestioned fact, that more than a century should have passed away, after Cabot had discovered the coast of North America for England, before any knowledge was gained of the noble river on which your city stands, and which was destined by Providence to determine in after-times the position of the commercial metropolis of the continent. It is true that Verazzano, a bold and sagacious Florentine navigator in the service of France, had entered the Narrows in 1524, which he describes as a very large river, deep at its mouth, which forced its way through steep hills to the sea. But though he, like most of the naval adventurers of that age, was sailing westward in search of a shorter pas

* A Discourse delivered at Albany, on occasion of the Inauguration of the Dudley Observatory, in that city, on the 28th of August, 1856. The original edition contained the following dedication:

To Mrs. BLANDINA DUDLEY, to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, to the Regents of the University of the State of New York, and to the citizens of Albany generally, this Discourse, delivered on their invitation and in their presence, and published at the request of the committee of arrangements for the Inauguration of the Dudley Observatory, is, with the best wishes for the complete success of that noble enterprise, respectfully dedicated by EDWARD EVERett,

sage to India, he left this part of the coast without any attempt to ascend the river; nor can it be gathered from his narrative that he believed it to penetrate far into the interior.

Near a hundred years elapsed, before that great thought acquired substance and form. In the spring of 1609, the heroic but unfortunate Hudson, one of the brightest names in the history of English maritime achievement, but then in the employment of the Dutch East India Company, in a vessel of eighty tons, bearing the very astronomical name of the "Half-moon," having been stopped by the ice in the polar sea, in the attempt to reach the East by the way of Nova Zembla, struck over to the coast of America in a high northern latitude. He then stretched down south-westwardly to the entrance of Chesapeake Bay, (of which he had gained a knowledge from the charts and descriptions of his friend, Capt. Smith,)—thence returning to the North, entered Delaware Bay, standing out again to sea arrived on the 2d of September in sight of the "high hills" of Neversink, pronouncing it "a good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see," and on the following morning, sending his boat before him to sound the way, passed Sandy Hook, and there came to anchor, on the 3d of September, 1609; two hundred and forty-seven years ago, next Wednesday. What an event, my friends, in the history of American population, enterprise, commerce, intelligence, and power, the dropping of that anchor at Sandy Hook!

Here he lingered a week, in friendly intercourse with the natives of New Jersey, while a boat's company explored the waters up to Newark Bay. And now the great question. Shall he turn back like Verazzano, or ascend the stream? Hudson was of a race and in an employ, not prone to turn back, by sea or by land. On the 11th of September, he raised the anchor of the "Half-moon," passed through the Narrows, beholding on both sides "as beautiful a land as one can tread on;" and floated cautiously and slowly up the noble stream, the first ship that ever rested on its bosom. passed the Palisades, nature's dark basaltic Malakoff; forced

He

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the iron gateway of the Highlands, and anchored on the 14th, near West Point; swept onward and upward the following day by grassy meadows and tangled slopes, hereafter to be covered with smiling villages; - by elevated banks and woody heights, the destined site of future towns and cities, tot egregias urbes, of Newburg, Poughkeepsie, Catskill; — on the evening of the 15th arrived opposite "the mountains which lie from the river side," where he found "a very loving people and very old men;" and the day following reached the spot, hereafter to be honored by his own illustrious name. One more day wafts him up between Schodac and Castleton, and here he landed and passed a day with the natives,-greeted with all sorts of barbarous hospitality, the land "the finest for cultivation he ever set foot on," the natives so kind and gentle that, when they found he would not remain with them over night, and feared that he left them, poor children of nature, — because he was afraid of their weapons, he, whose quarter-deck was heavy with ordnance, they "broke their arrows in pieces and threw them in the fire." On the following morning, with the early floodtide, on the 19th of September, 1609, the Half-moon "ran higher up two leagues above the Shoals," and came to anchor in deep water, near the site of the present city of Albany. Happy, if he could have closed his gallant career, on the banks of the stream which so justly bears his name, and thus have escaped the sorrowful and mysterious catastrophe which awaited him in the Arctic waters, the next year!

But the discovery of your great river and of the site of your ancient city is not the only event, which renders the year 1609 memorable in the annals of America and the world. It was one of those years, in which a sort of sympathetic movement toward great results unconsciously pervades the races and the minds of men. While Hudson was exploring this mighty river and this vast region for the Dutch East India Company, Champlain, in the same year, carried the lilies of France to the beautiful lake which bears his name on your northern limits;-the languishing establishments of