30 August 1843
adams-john10 Neal Millikan Recreation Family Finances (Adams Family)
56 Quincy Wednesday 30. August 1843

30. V. Wednesday.

Spear William Mrs Martha Burrell. Peirce Benjamin Bond. William Cranch Frothingham Thomas. Brooks Edward junr Quincy Edmund Mrs Edmund Quincy

Spading one hour— Loosened the ground round the Apple seedling in front of my Library window— Deacon Spear was here to speak of the payment of my annual tax-bill—Town and County— A deduction of 4 per cent for payment on or before the first of September— My Son has the bill— We expected his return home this day; but he did not arrive— Captain Josiah Bass’s Son has four lots of woodland 50 acres in all, which he wants to sell, but names no asking price. I required that the precise quantity of the land should be ascertained, and the price specified—after which I promised to go and look at the lots.— Mrs. Martha is the widow of Lemuel Burrell, a Seaman on board the Macedonian frigate, and died in the service at Norfolk, Virginia— She has received the widow’s pension 5 years 72 dollars a year; but it was stop’d last January when she received 12 dollars as a final payment— She is in great want of a renewal of the pension, and desires to petition Congress for it. I advised her to petition jointly with as many other widows having the same ground of claim as her own, as she could find out, and I promised to present the petition and give it all the support in my power. She is a daughter of Joseph Beale heretofore of Squantum, and lives now with her daughter, wife of Richard Newcomb of this town— Mr Peirce Perkins professor of Astronomer at Harvard University, and Mr Bond, Observer for the observatory, which is to be came from Cambridge and dined with me— Mr Bond brought with him some papers additional to those which President Quincy had sent me— The successors of Frauenhofer at Munich are Merz an Optician, and Mahler a Mechanician— The price of the duplicate of the Pulkova Telescope is 42000 German florins, or 16800 dollars— On their Catalogue for sale there is a graduation of the prices of Refractors of inferior power—of 30,000. 22000. 15000— 8000. 4800. 2200. 2000 1500. 900. and 750 florins— And a multitude of other mathematical and optical instruments the most costly of which is the Heliometer charged at 15000 florins. Of this there is one at Pulkova— The mural circle is the next dearest astronomical instrument, after the Refractor. Its chief use is for making catalogues of Stars, and it requires two observers to be constantly occupied at the same time— They do not propose to procure at present a mural circle, or to make that Class of Observations at Cambridge— The Perkins professorship of Astronomy and Mathematics is a new institution at Harvard, and Mr Peirce has been this year appointed the first professor.— Mr Bond left with me two pamphlets—one in French F G. G. Struve’s report of his observations of double Stars, with Frauenhofer’s great Telescope at Dorpat from 1824 to 1837. Struve being then Director of the Dorpat Observatory.— The other is an Additamentum, in Latin, dated 2. Octr. 1839. when Struve had been transferred to the new Observatory at Pulkova; and with which there is appended a disquisition on the annual parallax of the Star [symbols] Lyrae— I collected from this interview much desultory information which I must tax my memory to retain, but which I cannot record. I took them up to Charles’s house to shew them the prospect— Met there Mr and Mrs Edmund Quincy on a visit from Dedham— Edward Brooks junr. and Thomas Frothingham came out afterwards and spent the Evening with us.

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