SKETCH OF JAMES CRAIG WAT SOX. 695 



solar eclipse at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, and, in 1870, to Carlantini, Sici- 

 ly, for a similar purpose. In 1874 he was appointed to the charge of 

 an expedition to Peking, China, to observe the transit of Venus. His 

 observations were favored by the weather, and conducted with con- 

 summate skill. The results, though reduced and discussed, are not 

 yet published. Even at the antipodes, fresh discoveries awaited him. 

 He had already raised his list of planetary discoveries to seventeen, 

 and now added Juewa^ the eighteenth. In 1876 he was one of the 

 Judges of Awards at the Centennial Exposition, and wrote the cele- 

 brated " Report on Horological Instruments." In 1878 also aj^peared 

 his " Tables for the Calculation of Simple and Compound Interest," a 

 work which, in spite of the subject, is marked by great originality, 

 and demanded a vast amount of wearisome labor. The same year he 

 was sent by the General Government in charge of an expedition to 

 Wyoming, to observe the total solar eclipse. Professor Watson, hav- 

 ing long entertained a belief in the existence of an intra-Mercurial 

 planet, as well as of an extra-Neptunian one, gave special attention at 

 this time to a search for the former, and was the first astronomer to 

 note certainly (July 29, 1878) the existence and position of the planet 

 Vulcan. He also satisfied himself of the existence of a second intra- 

 Mercurial planet. This brought the number of his original planetary 

 discoveries to twenty-six (including one lost July 29, 1873, and two 

 anticipated). He was now animated by an intense desire to control 

 instruments of suitable power and adjustment to confirm his last ob- 

 servations, and enable him to detect the outlying planet beyond Nep- 

 tune. Coincidently came the invitation to assume the charge of the 

 Washburne Observatory at Madison, Wisconsin, which was to be 

 improved and newly equipped with instruments far more efficient 

 than those at Ann Arbor. The temptation was great, but he natu- 

 rally clung to his alma mater, whose authorities made such efforts 

 as they thought authorized to content their astronomer. But the 

 requisite means could only be obtained by a grant from the Legisla- 

 ture, a measure defeated by an inadequate appreciation of the honor 

 shed upon the State by such a name as Watson's. Reluctantly, but 

 sustained by a high and noble aspiration, he removed, in the summer 

 of 1879, to Madison, and immediately devoted himself with intense 

 energy to remodeling the observatory structure, and introducing some 

 original provisions thought to be suited to the special researches on 

 which he was bent. A cellar twenty feet deep was sunk at the bot- 

 tom of the first slope of Observatory Hill. Into this, light was to be 

 thrown through a long tube, from powerful reflectors on the top of the 

 hill. This, with other accessory work, was actually in progress, when 

 a severe cold brought on peritonitis, which over-confidence in his physi- 

 cal powers permitted to reach a fatal stage before medical aid was 

 summoned. His remains, accompanied by an escort from the Univer- 

 sity of Wisconsin, were removed to Ann Arbor, where they lay in 



