1From Thomas Jefferson to William Lambert, 29 November 1822 (Jefferson Papers)
You have often gratified me by your astronomical communications, and I am now about to amuse you with one of mine. but I must first explain the circumstances which have drawn me into a speculation so foreign to the path of life which the times in which I have lived, more than my own inclinations have led me to pursue. I had long deemed it incumbent on the authorities of our country to have the...