A ORMSBY MACKNIGHT MITCHEL. MONG the noble and gallant graduates of West-Point who, at the call of their country, abandoned eminent secular positions to devote their lives to her service, there has been none more widely or deservedly known and honored than Ormsby Macknight Mitchel. An accomplished mathematician, thoroughly versed in theoretical and practical astronomy, possessing great powers of oratory, and a remarkable inventive genius, which he had made of great service to the science of which he was passionately fond, and having an energetic temperament, a vigorous, sinewy constitution, and extraordinary executive abilities, he was one of those men who could not fail to make their mark. To his other valuable qualities were added an intense patriotism, a devout and reverent spirit, and the urbanity and polish of manners of the Christian gentleman. He was born in Union County, Kentucky, August twenty-eighth, 1810. His parents were Virginians, but had emigrated to Kentucky some years before his birth. Though residing in a fertile section of the State, his parents do not seem to have prospered pecuniarily, though they were solicitous for the education of their children. Young Mitchel early manifested a taste for study; at twelve years of age he had acquired a good elementary English education, had made considerable progress in mathematics, and had mastered the rudiments of Latin and Greek. he At this time, in consequence, we believe, of the death of one or both parents, was thrown upon his own resources. His early school education had been obtained at Lebanon, Warren County, Ohio, and he obtained a situation as clerk in a store at Miami, Ohio, with wages at four dollars a month and his board. Not long afterward he was offered a similar but more lucrative situation at Lebanon, and diligently improving his leisure moments in study, he was well fitted to enter the Military Academy at West-Point, where he received an appointment as a cadet in June, 1825. His little earnings were expended in his outfit and the expense of meals and lodgings on his journey to West-Point, and having performed the journey, a wearisome one at that day, on foot, he entered the Academy with his knapsack on his back and twenty-five cents in his pocket. The zeal for obtaining an education which led to such sacrifices, and the endurance of such hardships, was not likely to flag even under the severe discipline of the Military Academy, and we find accordingly that he early took and maintained throughout his course a very high rank as a scholar. The class was one which contained several brilliant men, among them the present rebel Generals Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston, but neither ranked so high as the energetic young Ohio backwoodsman. He graduated in 1829, and was at once made Acting Assistant Professor of Mathematics, though but nineteen years of age. After holding this post for two years, he was detailed to garrison duty; but, in 1832, tired of inactivity, and having studied law during his leisure time, he resigned, and was admitted to the Ohio bar at Cincinnati. In 1834, he was elected Professor of Mathematics, Philosophy, and Astronomy in Cincinnati College, and filled the chair with great ability for ten years. His reputation as a mathematician and an eloquent public speaker far transcended the limits of the college halls, and he was hardly more than thirty years of age when the citizens of Cincinnati were accustomed to boast of him as "their great mathematician and the smartest man out West." In 1836 and 1837, while still performing his duties as professor, he was chosen Chief Engineer on the Little Miami Railroad, and the skilful manner in which he laid out that railroad, the first which connected the Ohio and the lakes, and the substantial style in which he caused it to be built, added materially to the already high estimate of his abilities. He was an attendant, during a portion of his professorship, on the ministrations of the Rev. Lyman Beecher, D.D., in many respects one of the most remarkable men who has filled an American pulpit, and a man whose character and powers Mitchel could fully appreciate, and with whom he was in most hearty and cordial sympathy. To the vigorous, burning utterances of the "old man eloquent " he was always an attentive and fascinated listener, and there grew up a lifelong friendship between the two. In the spring of 1842 he commenced a course of lectures on astronomy to a popular audience, the first attempt of the kind which had been made in the West, if not the first in the United States. The course, which occupied two or three evenings each week, lasted two months, and a hall capable of seating nearly two thousand people was crowded every evening during its delivery. It was, we believe, at the close of these lectures that he first broached the idea of an Observatory at Cincinnati. The idea was certainly a bold one, for there was not a first-class observatory at that time in the United States. Indeed, there were but five of any kind then in existence in the country, and a sixth in process of erection. Of these, the Williams College and Yale College Observatories were small and but poorly furnished with instruments, and neither had been in existence a dozen years; there was also a small observatory at Western Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio, and a better one at Philadelphia, both erected in 1838, and in 1840 an observatory had been erected for the first time at West-Point. The Governnment were at this very time establishing one at Washington. Professor Mitchel's plan was to divide the sum necessary for the building and furnishing the Observatory with proper instruments into shares of twenty-five dollars each, and when three hundred were taken up the stockholders were to elect their directors or trustees. He was at this time engaged in teaching six hours a day, but he entered upon his work of procuring subscriptions to the stock with such activity and zeal that in less than a month the whole amount was subscribed, and Nicholas Longworth, the Cincinnati millionaire, had donated a site for it. One of the first resolutions of the directors, after their election, was to send Professor Mitchel to Europe to purchase the apparatus for the Observatory. He complied with the wishes of the directors, but he would not trench upon his duties to the college. He accordingly left Cincinnati at the close of the spring term, and was absent from the city just one hundred days, during which time he visited Washington to obtain his papers and letters of introduction to eminent astronomers abroad, hastened thence to New-York, from which city he sailed for Havre, and after a rapid exploration of Paris, which satisfied him that there was no refracting telescope there such as he wanted, started for Munich, refusing to delay on the route to see the Lake of Geneva or any other of the points usually visited by travellers, but making all speed to his destination. At Munich he found the lens of the great refractor, which is now mounted equatorially in the Cincinnati Observatory, in the manufactory of the celebrated opticians Merz and Mohler, but the price was ten thousand dollars, three thousand more than his directors had empowered him to expend; taking the responsibility, however, he made the contract for it, and directed the time, place, and circumstances of its shipment. This done, he hurried on to London, to gain access, for a few weeks, to the Greenwich Observatory as a student. He found Professor Airy, the Astronomer Royal, to whom he had strong letters of introduction, most freezingly polite, and evidently determined to grant him no privileges or courtesies beyond those of the most formal character. He was not even invited into the Observatory. But the young professor was not to be so easily repulsed. He knew that it was desirable that he should enjoy the opportunity of seeing the methods of observation adopted in the Greenwich Observatory, and he determined he would do it. He accordingly, after some general conversation, in which the English astronomer had been curt even to rudeness, asked Professor Airy's opinion as to the best mode of mounting a telescope. "Go to Cambridge, and you will see my opinion practically embodied in that observatory," was the ungracious reply. After a little further conversation, but without signifying his intention of complying with the advice thus tendered, Professor Mitchel withdrew. It was late in the afternoon, and the train for Cambridge would start in a few minutes. Calling a hackman, he ordered him to drive him to the station, secured his ticket and was off. It was a remarkably fine night, and he well knew that before he could reach |