Since Miss Mitchell’s death, the fund has been completed by the alumnae, and is known as the Maria Mitchell Endowment Fund.  With $10,000 appropriated by the trustees it amounts to $50,000.

“June 18, 1876.  I had imagined the Emperor of Brazil to be a dark, swarthy, tall man, of forty-five years; that he would not really have a crown upon his head, but that I should feel it was somewhere around, handy-like, and that I should know I was in royal presence.  But he turns out to be a large, old man,—­say, sixty-five,—­broad-headed and broad-shouldered, with a big white beard, and a very pleasant, even chatty, manner.

“Once inside of the dome, he seemed to feel at home; to my astonishment he asked if Alvan Clark made the glass of the equatorial.  As he stepped into the meridian-room, and saw the instruments, he said, ‘Collimators?’ I said, ‘You have been in observatories before.’  ’Oh, yes, Cambridge and Washington,’ he replied.  He seemed much more interested in the observatory than I could possibly expect.  I asked him to go on top of the roof, and he said he had not time; yet he stayed long enough to go up several times.  I am told that he follows out, remarkably, his own ideas as to his movements.”

In 1878, Miss Mitchell went to Denver, Colorado, to observe the total eclipse of the sun.  She was accompanied by several of her former pupils.  She prepared an account of this eclipse, which will be found in Chapter XI.

“Aug. 20, 1878.  Dr. Raymond [President of Vassar College] is dead.  I cannot quite take it in.  I have never known the college without him, and it will make all things different.

“Personally, I have always been fond of him; he was very enjoyable socially and intellectually.  Officially he was, in his relations to the students, perfect.  He was cautious to a fault, and has probably been very wise in his administration of college affairs.  He was broad in his religious views.  He was not broad in his ideas of women, and was made to broaden the education of women by the women around him.

“June 18, 1881.  The dome party to-day was sixty-two in number.  It was breakfast, and we opened the dome; we seated forty in the dome and twenty in the meridian-room.”

This “dome party” requires a few words of explanation, because it was unique among all the Vassar festivities.  The week before commencement, Miss Mitchell’s pupils would be informed of the approaching gathering by a notice like the following: 

    CIRCULAR.

    The annual dome party will be held at the observatory on
    Saturday, the 19th, at 6 P.M.  You are cordially invited to be
    present.

    M. M.

    [As this gathering is highly intellectual, you are invited to
    bring poems.]