168 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
of an instructor in the University with which he was connected 
forsolong atime. ‘If from all those who have come under his 
instruction we should seek to learn their personal recollections 
of Professor Newton, we should probably find that the most 
universal impression which he made on his classes was that of his 
enthusiastic love of the subject which he was teaching.” 
(Gibbs. ) 
In 1882 the observatory was established at Yale and Professor 
Newton, to whom it largely owed its existence, was the first 
director. He introduced there the use of the photographic 
camera to record the tracks of meteors, and in one instance, 
through a simultaneous observation of Mr. Lewis at Ansonia, 
was able to calculate the course of a meteor in the earth’s atmos- 
phere. 
He was naturally interested in collections of meteoric stones 
and the fine series in the Peabody Museum is largely the result 
of his efforts. 
Professor Newton was one of the founders of the American 
Metrological Society, and for several years was President of 
the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1864 he 
became associate editor of the American Journal of Sctence. 
He was awarded the first Lawrence Smith Medal by the 
National Academy of Sciences in 1888. He died in New Haven 
on August 12, 1896. 
(From J. Wi1LLarp Gisps, in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy 
of Sciences, vol. 4, 1902, pp. 99-124.) 
BENJAMIN PEIRCE 
Born, April 4, 1809; died, October 6, 1880 
An important incident in Professor Peirce’s boyhood was his 
acquaintance with Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch, whose son was a 
schoolmate. In the dedication of one of his books he speaks 
of Dr. Bowditch as “my Master in Science, Nathaniel Bow- 
ditch, the father of American Geometry.” 
Professor Peirce was born in Salem, Massachusetts, April 4, 
1809, and entered Harvard College in 1825. Dr. Bowditch had 
