8 EDWARD EMERSON BARNARD— FROST [MemoikS [vouxxi; 



participated in the meetings and activities of the Camera Club and of the Bohemian Club of 

 San Francisco, as well as with the colleagues at Berkeley. Conditions of life- on the moun- 

 tain were comparatively simple and at the start Mr. Barnard's salary was small; but these 

 circumstances were much improved toward the end of his stay, and his opportunities for the 

 use of the great telescope were increased so that he often worked with it on two and some- 

 times even three nights a week. However, circumstances into wliich we need not enter finally 

 led him to desire a change, and in 1895 he accepted an invitation to become a member of the 

 staff of the Yerkes Observatory, then in process of construction as a department of the new 

 University of Chicago. His official title was to be professor of practical astronomy and astrono- 

 mer at the Yerkes Observatory, but no duties of giving instruction were involved for him, beyond 

 an occasional popular lecture in the summer courses at the university. His official connection 

 with the university began on October 1, 1895. As had happened at the Lick, there were unex- 

 pected delays in the completion of the Yerkes Observatory, so that for the greater part of a 

 year Professor Barnard lived in Chicago near the Kenwood Observatory, the equipment of 

 which had been presented to the university by Prof. George E. Hale and his father, William E. 

 Hale. This period constituted something of a gap in Mr. Barnard's observational activity, 

 but the time was usefully employed in preparing for publication some of the results of his observa- 

 tions at Mount Hamilton, including his attempts at securing reproductions of the photographs 

 of the Milky Way and comets made there. 



In the summer of 1896, Professor and Mrs. Barnard occupied a cottage on the shore of 

 Lake Geneva, and began the construction of the house which was to be their home for the 

 next quarter of a century, on land which they had purchased adjacent to the grounds of the 

 observatory. In February, 1897, Mr. Barnard went to England to receive the gold medal 

 of the Royal Astronomical Society, but, owing to delay of the steamer by bad weather, he 

 unfortunately did not arrive until the day after the annual meeting of the society. A special 

 meeting was held on March 2, at which Professor Barnard exhibited and explained some of his 

 most notable photographs, taken at the Lick Observatory, and a dinner was given like the one 

 prepared on the evening which he missed. As Mr. Barnard was very keen to begin work with 

 the 40-inch, which was then expected to be ready in the spring, as well as to complete the equip- 

 ment of his new home, in which he took a great interest, he sailed for home after a stay in Eng- 

 land of less than three weeks, and was back at Williams Bay by the middle of March. 



A few weeks later the 40-inch objective was brought from Cambridge by Alvan G. Clark, 

 and was adjusted by him in its cell on the great instrument. It was first used on the night 

 of May 21, and the tests of its performance were highly satisfactory. There were occasional 

 opportunities during the next week, when the sky was clear, for further tests, and on the night 

 of May 28 Professor Barnard had a narrow escape. He was observing during the latter part 

 of that night, until daylight, and left the dome at dawn. Just before 7 o'clock, as the result 

 of faulty connection of the supporting cables, the moving floor fell, involving its almost com- 

 plete destruction, but fortunately without injuring the telescope itself. Had this happened 

 a few hours earlier, the observer could hardly have escaped a serious injury or death. 



This delayed the formal opening of the observatory until October 21, 1897, and Mr. Bar- 

 nard had to exercise his patience in waiting for further use of the great refractor. As soon as 

 it was ready for regular work, Professor Barnard again plunged into observing, having the great 

 telescope at his disposal regularly for two and often for three or four nights each week. He was, 

 of course, interested in making some tests of the quality of the 40-inch as compared with the 

 36-inch telescope which he had previously used. He, therefore, observed some of the difficult 

 double stars, such as Schaeberle's companion to Procyon, and Kappa Pegasi, and secured some 

 elongations of the fifth satellite of Jupiter. He studied some of the variable stars in Messier 

 5 which had recently been discovered by Prof. S. I. Bailey, finding a couple of additional variables 

 in that cluster. He also measured in the daytime the diameters of Venus and Mercury, some- 

 times under especially fine conditions of seeing. 



He began at this time a micrometric triangulation of some of the globular star clusters, 

 measuring in this first year the positions of 95 stare in Messier 5 and a smaller number in Messier 



