6i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



SKETCH OF PKOFESSOE SIMO^ NEWCOMB. 



PROF. NEWCOMB was born in the Province of Nova Scotia, 

 March 12, 1835. Both of his parents were of New England 

 descent, their families having emigrated to the Provinces at various 

 times. His father pursued the avocation of village schoolmaster, and 

 from this circumstance the son during his childhood enjoyed educa- 

 tional advantages which were good for the time and place, but ex- 

 ceedingly scanty when measured by any other standard. A taste for 

 arithmetic was developed at a very early age, and before he was 

 twelve years old the embryo astronomer had completed the (restricted) 

 course taught by his father. 



From this time he was thrown upon his own resources, reading 

 and studying at random the few books which Providence threw in his 

 way. A traveling peddler sold him Latin and Greek grammars and 

 readers. For a short time he studied the rudiments of French, with 

 a teacher, but acquired a better knowledge of the language from the 

 descendants of the old French settlers, while at the same time an 

 algebra, borrowed from a clergyman, was his constant companion. 



At the age of eighteen we find him in the State of Maryland, 

 teaching school his ancestral calling but with his active mind con- 

 stantly engaged in mathematical pursuits. In 1856 Mr. Newcomb 

 was so happy as to make the acquaintance of Prof. Henry, of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, with whom he had corresponded on a scien- 

 tific subject, and who soon took an active interest in the welfare of 

 his newly-discovered young friend. In conjunction with Mr. Hil- 

 gard. Prof. Henry secured for young Newcomb a position as com- 

 puter for the "American Nautical Almanac," the office of which was 

 then located at Cambridge, Massachusetts. 



Here Mr. Newcomb found both the material and the incentive to 

 pursue his mathematical studies of the theories of the celestial motions. 

 He enrolled himself a student of the Lawrence Scientific School, and 

 attended the lectures of Prof. Peirce. After making a study of the 

 works of Laplace and La Grange, he started on the line of original 

 investigation, and has ever since pursued it, with uniform success. 

 In 1861 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics in the Navy, and 

 assigned to duty at the Naval Observatory, Washington, with which 

 he is still connected. 



In 1863 he married Miss M. C. Hassler, daughter of the late Sur- 

 geon Hassler, United States Navy, and granddaughter of the late Prof. 

 Hassler, the originator and first Superintendent of the United States 

 Coast Survey. 



It may seem surprising that, wliile Prof. Newcomb's name is not 



