550 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



assistant, Mr. Graham. The zone assigned to the observatory 

 was that between 25 and 30 of north declination. As related to 

 this work, Prof. Adams gave, in an appendix to one of the vol- 

 umes of the Cambridge Observations, the formulae and instruc- 

 tions which he had drawn up many years before for the forma- 

 tion of a proposed new fundamental catalogue, together with the 

 mean places of the eighty-four fundamental stars from 1830 to 

 1870. 



Prof. Adams was President of the Royal Astronomical Society 

 in 1851-1853, and in 1874-1876, and had the honor of delivering the 

 addresses in presenting the gold medal to Dr. Peters, Dr. Hind, 

 D'Arrest, and Leverrier. In 1870, as vice-president, he delivered 

 the address on the presentation of the medal to Delaunay. He 

 himself received the medal in 1866 for his contributions to the 

 development of the lunar theory. He received the Copley medal 

 of the Royal Society in 1848. In 1881 he declined an offer of the 

 position of astronomer royal. In 1884 he was one of the British 

 delegates to the International Prime Meridian Conference, which 

 met in Washington. He received honorary degrees from Oxford, 

 Dublin, Edinburgh, the University of Bologna, and his own uni- 

 versity ; and he was a correspondent of numerous foreign learned 

 societies. 



Among his peculiar tastes in work Prof. Glaisher mentions 

 the enjoyment he took in making calculations that called for long 

 lines of figures, as illustrated in his calculation of Euler's constant 

 to 263, and of some logarithms to 273, places of decimals. Few of 

 his papers were produced spontaneously. In the majority of cases 

 he was induced to give an account of some investigation of his 

 own by the publication of a paper by some one else in which the 

 same subject was treated. He was able to map out beforehand in 

 his head the whole course of an investigation ; and he rarely be- 

 gan to write till he had carefully thought out his subject, when he 

 wrote straight on without interruption. 



While astronomy and mathematics were his professed studies, 

 he was interested in other branches of knowledge, was a man of 

 most extensive general reading, was much attracted to special 

 pursuits, and made a valuable collection of early printed books. 

 His moral and intellectual qualities were well balanced. 



Prof. Adams was attacked by a severe illness in October, 1889, 

 but recovered and continued his mathematical work for several 

 months. He was again attacked in June, 1890, by an illness from 

 which he never fully recovered. 



