his draft and he was forced to admit that he had run into a serious difficulty: he had found an error in the mathematical theory used to calculate the effects of the viscosity of air on the period of the pendulum. “This is one of the most difficult mathematical problems conceivable,” Peirce wrote to Thorn (29 Aug. 1887), but he expected that his work would lead to an improvement in Stokes’ hydrodynamical theory which would justify the delay; by the end of September Peirce decided that he should put off further treatment of hydrodynamics for a separate memoir. The final illness and death of Peirce’s mother kept him in Cambridge for most of the month of October 1887, but by the end of November he wrote Thorn that his “long report” was almost ready, “requiring only final touches.” Two months later, on 30 January 1888, Peirce sent in what he had ready “for the sake of suggestions of which I may avail myself in making the copy of it.” He acknowledged that a lot of work, mostly clerical, remained unfinished and asked if he could have some assistance. Thorn declined and returned the draft unreviewed to be finished and copied.
Weeks passed by and Thorn’s displeasure increased. On 30 March Peirce felt the need to explain the continuing delay. Pendulum work, he pointed out, is much more complicated than other geodetic work such as triangulation, longitude work, and leveling, because there are so many more sources of error that have to be studied and corrected for. “If these difficulties are only slightly increased, there results an enormous increase, first in the precautions which have to be taken in the field, and second in the puzzle of interpreting the observations.” Defects in the construction of the Peirce pendulums, which Peirce attributed to poor American craftsmanship, made it all the more difficult to reach useful results, and the problem of hydrodynamics, now to be treated separately, had taken considerable time. “Now anybody who has ever done such a Work in such a way,—ask such men as Langley or Newcomb,—will tell you that it is impossible to make any reliable estimate of how much time it will take.” Peirce’s emotions were at a high pitch and he could not resist an allusion to Colonna’s obstructionism: “In addition to this, I was subjected to false accusations of the most disgraceful kind, and the newspapers were filled with unbounded lies about me readily traceable to important personages. All of these things, and others which I omit to mention, distracted the equanimity of my mind considerably.” In the margin of Peirce’s letter, Colonna added the sarcastic remark: “What about other people’s distractions of mind[?] Also what distracted his mind at all except the last 3 stations?” This was a clear reference to Peirce’s relations with Juliette, and the fact that she had accompanied Peirce on many of his field assignments. Even though Peirce would not have seen Colonna’s remark, Thorn and others in the Washington office would have; it indicates that rumors of scandal had infected Peirce’s Coast Survey relations with the poison that had driven him from Johns Hopkins and had virtually sent him into exile. Peirce felt compelled to respond to the irritation and displeasure Thorn had been exhibiting:
The tone of your letters would seem to betray the opinion that I am myself completely insensible to the disparity between the time I estimated for the work and the time it has occupied. But can you suppose that I do not look upon the labor of my life seriously? Or that anything that you or the Hon. Secretary could say or do about it could possibly be as grievous to me as the want of my own self-commendation? When I agreed to do this work by myself my intention was to hire a computer; for I do not believe that anybody in the world could do such work advantageously without aid. The papers amount to at least a hundredweight and the mere picking out of such as are wanted in one day will all together often occupy hours.
Peirce took time in July to work on the method for calculating the figure of the earth from gravity determinations and on 10 August submitted his results for publication. For the rest of the year, again without an assistant, Peirce continued to work on reductions of data and on flexure and time calculations. On 31 December 1888, following a recommendation from C. A. Schott, he wrote to Thorn suggesting that both series of stations be included in one comprehensive report: “The amount of additional computation required is considerable, although not so great by any means as if the constants & behaviour of the instruments had not been studied.” Peirce added, with some obvious bitterness: “The labour of writing the report,—of composing it, writing it, copying, verifying copies,—which is in part mechanical and in part requires all the ability I can bring to the task,—but in every part the utmost care and consideration, has mostly to be done over.”
You will remember that about a year ago, I sent you my report in a substantially complete state (though then only embracing 4 stations) with the request that it be submitted to such critical examination as might be practicable and the result communicated to me for my aid in revision. The request was refused; and your letter embodying the refusal, conveyed to me the conviction that any flaws however trifling which might be detected would be husbanded to form material for an attack after the report was printed. Under these circumstances, my caution about parting my MS. out of my hands is naturally increased…. I am unable to say more definitely at what time my report will be ready, than that it will be during next spring.
On 11 January 1889, Peirce reassured Thorn that “the full report on the meridional line from Montreal to Key West inclusive & from Albany to Madison inclusive will be completed during the Spring,” but Thorn, at Colonna’s instigation, had lost faith in Peirce and decided that it was time to see exactly where things stood. He ordered Peirce to package up all of his work on the report and ship it to Washington for examination. Peirce complied, and two days later had packed and shipped twenty large books of reduced data and 2037 carefully inventoried and numbered manuscript pages and draft materials (see p. 636). Peirce could not let pass unaddressed the distrust that Thorn’s order so clearly revealed. He told Thorn that he was glad to send all of his working documents because, for one thing, it would rebut the insinuation that the draft report he had sent the previous year had represented little effort on his part. But Thorn would also see that a great deal had been accomplished since then “and that the principal cause of the delay in completing the work has been the great amount of time spent upon the general method of pendulum observations and reductions,—which lay directly in my way” Peirce estimated that he needed at least three more months to complete the report and he asked again if he could submit it in draft to be looked at by specialists before making his official submission. Taking Thorn to task for a previous refusal, he added presciently:
You say your object was to prevent my shifting the blame for the report to other shoulders. Now, for my part, I really do not think the report will sink below the zero of merit; but anyway, you overlook the fact that I never asked for binding directions but only for suggestions which I might be free to adopt or not. My main, not to say my only, motive was that I had reversed the usual order of presentation in a scientific memoir by stating the conclusions before the premises; and I wished to know how this would strike another mind competent to judge of it. (30 January 1889)
Peirce’s relations with Thorn were at a very low point, yet, having unburdened himself, Peirce put his rancor aside and tried to resume normal relations. He wrote to Thorn on 4 February to say that, while the Peirce pendulum records were in Washington, he had gone to work on the Kater pendulum records from his Hoboken observations. He asked if he might go into the field again in the South—without mentioning that he was about to send Juliette to Southern Georgia for her health. Thorn declined. A few days later, Thorn returned all of Peirce’s records “precisely as received from you—with the exception of Ms. report of pendulum work, which is in your handwriting and is retained for safe keeping in the archives here …” (13 Feb. 1889).41 Peirce resumed his work on the long report and by the end of April had finished the reductions for the Montreal and Albany stations.
Whether Peirce knew on 30 January, when he wrote his spirited letter, that Thorn was about to resign is uncertain, but by mid-February it was common knowledge that Thorn would tender his resignation in March to be effective when a new superintendent was appointed. Peirce had hoped for this for a long time; he thought that a new superintendent, if a scientist were chosen and not another lawyer, would want him back playing a more active role in Survey operations. This may have had something to do with Peirce’s request to go back into the field and was surely on his mind in May when he wrote to
