design into execution. A petition numerously signed was presented to the Legislature on the 13th of May, 1823. On the 16th, the charter passed the lower House, and soon after received the sanction of the Senate and the signature of the Governor.

The news of the final passage of the bill granting the charter was received with great joy by the citizens of Hartford. Cannon were fired and bonfires lighted. Measures were immediately taken to raise the requisite funds, the charter having provided that the Trustees should not proceed to organize the institution, until funds to the amount of $30,000 should be secured. Over $50,000 were immediately subscribed; three-fourths of this sum in Hartford and its vicinity. A most eligible site was secured on an eminence overlooking the city of Hartford, and about half a mile west of the State House. The buildings were begun in June, 1824, and the college commenced its operations in September of the same year-Bishop Brownell being its first President. The first Commencement was held in August, 1827, in the Centre Church, when ten young gentlemen received the degree of B. A. Bishop BROWNELL finding that the cares and labors of the Diocese required his undivided attention, resigned the presidency in 1831, and was succeeded by the Rev. N. S. WHEATON, D. D., who continued at the head of the college until 1837. During his presidency and chiefly by his personal efforts the Hobart Professorship was endowed with the sum of $20,000; the Seabury Professorship of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy with $14,000, and large additions made to the general funds of the institution. The Rev. SILAS TOTTEN, D. D., was chosen President in 1837, and continued to hold the office till the close of the academic year in 1848. During his incumbency Brownell Hall was erected in 1845; the funds having been mainly contributed by the citizens of Hartford. About the same time a charity fund amounting to $12,000, was raised by subscription throughout the diocese to enable the college to give free tuition in the form of Scholarships, to those who may need such asssistance.

By permission of the Legislature of the same year (1845,) the name of the College was changed from Washington to Trinity. It was in 1845 that the Trustees passed certain statutes organizing the House of Convocation and creating the Board of Fellows.

The Rev. Dr. Totten was succeeded in 1848 by the Rev. JOHN WILLIAMS, D. D., an alumnus of the College. Under his Presidency the library was considerably augmented, the number of students increased, the Professorship of Public Economy established, and a Theologial Department organized. In 1849, by an alteration of the charter, the

Bishop of the Diocese was made Chancellor and ex officio President of the Board of Trustees. In 1851, Dr. Williams was elected Assistant Bishop of this Diocese, and in 1853 finding that his Episcopal duties demanded his whole time, he resigned the presidency of the College. His successor is the Rev. DANIEL R. GOODWIN, D. D., late of Bowdoin College, who entered on his duties in September, 1853. The year 1854 saw the Scovill Professorship of Chemistry and Natural Science endowed with $20,000 by a single family, and a donation of $5,000 from a single individual, which is to be known as the Elton fund for the library-acts of noble generosity which it is hoped will serve as fruitful examples to others who have the welfare of the College at heart, and who at the same time possess the ability to promote it. It is, we are happy to learn, the purpose of the Trustees and friends of the College to go on and endow at least one professorship every year, until its apparatus for instruction is, in all respects, of the most complete and perfect character.

The College grounds comprise about fourteen acres, and are laid out with walks, and ornamented with trees and shrubbery. The site is elevated and overlooks on the one side the city of Hartford, and on the other, a fine expanse of cultivated country. The Little River, which forms its north-western boundary, supplies a convenient place for bathing and rowing in the summer, and for skating in the winter. The proposed new park of thirty acres, which has been voted by the citizens of Hartford, joins the College grounds on the north, and will, when laid out, graded and planted with trees, add very much to their beauty.

The College Halls-three in number are built of Portland stone, and in the Ionic style. Jarvis Hall, which was erected in 1824, is 45 feet wide, 150 in length and four stories high. Seabury Hill, erected in 1824, 90 by 55 feet, and three stories high-contains the Chapel, 50 by 35 feet, which is furnished with a fine organ, the library and cabinet, each of the same dimensions with the Chapel, the laboratory, the philosophical and other public rooms. Brownell Hall, built in 1845, is 48 by 150 feet, and four stories high.

The COLLEGE LIBRARY contains about six thousand volumes, over four thousand pamphlets, some of great rarity; and a small collection of coins and medals. It is more particularly rich in the Latin classics, the works of the Fathers of the Church and works on the Romish Controversy. There are also two libraries belonging to the Literary Societies, which together contain upwards of 6,000 volumes.

The CABINET contains an extensive collection of minerals and geolo

gical specimens, to which has recently been added one of the finest collections of shells in the country.

There are more than thirty endowed scholarships or exhibitions, which yield their incumbents from $30 to $100 per annum, and which afford great encouragement to young men of slender means who are struggling to secure a liberal education. Besides this aid, the Church Scholarship Society, founded in 1807, gives assistance to such necessitous students as design to enter the ministry, to the extent of $100 per annum during the last three years of their College course.

AN ACCOUNT OF A METEOR,

Which was seen (in the vicinity of Hartford, Ct.,) on the night of October 3d, 1850.

On the evening of the 3d of October, 1850, a splendid meteor of unusual size was seen by two observers, who reside on the eastern slope of Talcott Mountain, about seven miles west of the City of Hartford in the State of Connecticut. It was first seen by Mr. Gaylord Welles, and afterwards by his wife; and to the former I am indebted for all the particulars that I have been able to collect in respect to this remarkable phenomenon; for I cannot ascertain from the published accounts of meteors that this brilliant visitant was elsewhere noticed. It would however be passing strange, if a body of such vast size, and which appeared so early in the evening, and continued visible for so long a time, should have failed of attracting attention; and the silence respecting it, must be attributed to the little interest manifested in the spectacle, by those who beheld it. The following facts I took down from the lips of Mr. Welles with whom I have been acquainted from my boyhood, and whose statements as to what he saw, I know to be worthy of the utmost confidence:

The place where my informant resides, commands a full view of the heavens in three directions, north, east and south. On the night in question, he stepped out of the eastern door of his house, at about halfpast eight o'clock, as near as he could judge; the sky was serene and the moon within about an hour of her meridian. Upon passing round the south-east corner of his house, Mr. Welles saw a little south of west, and full sixty degrees above the horizon, a bright meteor apparently a foot in diameter.

It shone with an orange hue, and below it was a train which seemed to be fifteen or sixteen feet in length, fan-shaped, and possessing an apparent breadth at its further extremity, of full two feet. The train

shone with a mild phosphoric lustre, and resembled a light and delicate summer cloud. The meteor rose up from west to east with a slow and stately motion, the train preserving nearly its original length, as the body advanced towards the meridian, and swept onward to the moon.

In its progress, the meteor passed above, or to the north of this luminary; and when it had arrived on the eastern side, directly turned towards the south-east, and dropping down below the moon, a part of its attendant train swept over the lunar disk. As it crossed it, the face of the moon was slightly obscured, as when dimmed by the passage of a fleeting cloud. The meteor now gradually descended and was watched until it had reached the verge of the horizon in the southeast; and when last seen, appeared together with its train, to be not more than eight or nine inches long. Neither explosions nor scintillations were observed in any part of its course; and it appears to have been unattended with any remarkable changes in form. As far as any judgment could be formed of the velocity of this body, it is believed that the time occupied in moving the length of the train, could not be less than thrée minutes. The duration of the visibility of the meteor, is not accurately known; as the observer did not refer to the clock at the beginning and end of the phenomenon; but he is positive that it could not possibly be less than an hour, and probably was an hour and a half. In truth, Mr. Welles stood out so long gazing upon the wondrous spectacle, that his wife came out to see what had become of him ; and a severe cold was the result of his protracted exposure.

I regret that my informant was unable to give me the angular measurements of this meteor and its train, if it was only for the sake of comparing its dimensions with those of other meteors; but in one respect, this deficiency is partially supplied. The meteor of September 30th, 1850, which has been described by Professor Bond, was also observed by my informant, when near the Pleiades. He considers the meteor of October 3d, to have been much larger than this, when seen near these stars. The brightness however of the September meteor, was superior to that of October 3d. They probably differed but little in respect to the duration of their visibility. It is remarkable that two meteors of such extraordinary size, and which continued above the horizon for so long and unprecedented a time, should sweep through the heavens, over the same places on the earth, within three days of each other, and unless we knew that these both were different, we might almost be tempted to imagine that they were kindred bodies, circling as ́companions through the fields of space.

26

JOHN BROCKLESBY.

SAN FRANCISCO ON THE RIGHT TRACK.

This young giant of the Pacific, which has risen up by the side of the sea, with a rapidity almost equal to that of the fabled genii of the Arabian Nights, has taken hold of the work of education in right good earnest.

During the past year, vigorous efforts have been made to place the schools of San Francisco upon a proper basis, and to give them the greatest efficiency, as appears from the Annual Report of the Board of Education to the Common Council of San Francisco, dated September 1st, 1854. A summary of the proceedings of the Board cannot fail to

interest the readers of the Journal.

The first act of the Board after their appointment, was to elect a Superintendent; and the choice fell upon Mr. William H. O. Grady, an Alumnus of Vermont University. This appointment was made October 25th, 1853. Upon looking about for further duties, they found that the schools of the city, seven in number, were, with a single exception, in mere temporary buildings, suitable in no respects for school purposes, small, badly constructed, inconvenient, dilapidated, and wretched in the extreme. By strenuous exertions, the Board, before the setting in of the rainy season, provided better buildings for some of the schools, and improved those occupied by others. These arrangements were only regarded as temporary by the committee, who, to use their own language, were "determined to have an adequate number of the best planned and best constructed houses that time and means would warrant, erected as soon as possible, in order to relieve the schools from their miserable condition; believing that the best teaching and the best directed efforts, under the present unfavorable circumstances, would prove nearly fruitless. We therefore determined to erect not only substantial and commodious, but even elegant buildings, in order that the taste, as well as the common mind and heart might be cultivated; and that a true system of Education, in its broadest sense, might be put in successful operation."

Actuated by these noble ideas, the Board went to work at once to realize them; and with such energy did they proceed, that in the course of their official year, two new buildings were erected and almost completed, and a third school edifice greatly enlarged and improved. To particularize. In the 2d District, the building previously occupied by the school, was 60 feet long and 30 feet wide, having but one story, 14 feet high. It was enlarged by the committee at an expense of $9,000; and as it now stands completed, measures 70 feet by 30, and has two