The official report for 1846 states that up to that time the labors of Mr. Bond had been “entirely unrequited, except by the gratification of his love of science and of home,” and suggests that this devotion to the institution at Cambridge was the more marked in that during the preceding spring he had declined “the almost unlimited offers made to him by the administration at Washington to induce him to take charge of the observatory there.” It is known, also, that frequent expenditures of his own money were made during this period for current expenses and for things convenient in conducting the observatory, sums small severally, no doubt, but considerable in the total. In 1846 a sum equal to the proposed salaries for the next two years was subscribed by citizens of Boston, and in 1849 the official board was able to report that “through a bequest of $100,000 made by Edward Bromfield Phillips they should thereafter be relieved from anxiety as to the payment of salaries and current expenses.” Various official documents evince that during the first eight years Mr. Bond is to be regarded not in the character of an employee, but a benefactor of the college; that his labors were deemed by those most familiar with them to be indispensable and invaluable, and that his friendship for the college, manifested in all ways, and especially in his declination of the liberal offers coming from Washington, was appreciated and honored. The date of Mr. Bond’s appointment as director of the observatory was Feb. 12, 1840, though the confirmation by the corporation was later. He was given the honorary degree of A.M., by Harvard in 1842. III. In resuming consecutively the story of the half-century’s progress of Harvard College Observatory, which was interrupted in the preceding number to give place to a biographical notice of Prof. W. C. Bond, it may be remarked that the period of his official term, which covered 19 years, was fruitful in great discoveries and events in the astronomical department of science. Harvard Observatory contributed its full share, though the greatest of all was that which gave fame to Le Verrier, the French astronomer, the discovery of the planet Neptune. In September, 1844, the observatory building on Summer House hill had been completed to the extent proposed at that time, and the instruments were transferred from the Dana house.