ACADEMY OF SCIENCES] BIOGRAPHY 15 



went on with the advance guard of our party to our principal station at Green River, Wyo., 

 six weeks before the date of the eclipse. He took infinite pains in the adjustment of the hori- 

 zontal telescope used with our coelostat, and could be content with nothing but perfection in 

 the focusing of all the cameras for which he had any responsibility. Unfortunately, a great 

 cloud drifted across an otherwise perfect sky on that afternoon, covering the sun until two or 

 three minutes after totality was over. Mr. Barnard had been again interested in studying 

 the conditions for the eclipse of September 10, 1923, and up to within a fortnight of his death 

 we had still hoped that he might be a member of our party. 



Lunar eclipses were not neglected by Professor Barnard. He had photographed success- 

 fully, at the Lick Observatory, the eclipses of 1894 and 1895, and it was his custom to make 

 with the Bruce telescope many photographs of the different phases of each lunar eclipse which 

 occurred in favorable weather. With that instrument he also kept a photographic record of 

 all interesting conjunctions of the planets and similar occurrences. 



The displa3's of the aurora, which are frequently visible in Wisconsin, were a delight to 

 Professor Barnard, and he recorded fully their details and published two extended papers 

 regarding them. His notes covering the aurora for almost another solar cycle are still unpub- 

 lished. He also gave attention to the self-luminous night haze, which his long vigils had given 

 him unusual opportunities to observe, and he presented two papers on the subject to the Ameri- 

 can Philosophical Society, one in 1911 and the other in 1919. 



We thus find him a keen observer of nature in most of its visible phases. The meteors did 

 not escape him or Ms photographic plate, nor did the 17-year locusts at their regular recurrence. 

 In the growth of the trees which he had planted about his home he had great satisfaction, and 

 he had much pleasure in following the development and planting of the grounds of the observ- 

 atory, when that became possible a few years ago. 



In his will Professor Barnard bequeathed to the University of Chicago his home, as a memo- 

 rial to his wife, whose death occurred on May 25, 1921. To the Yerkes Observatory, he left 

 also his scientific books and the medals and awards he had received in recognition of his notable 

 services to science. 



Professor Barnard's home had been a center of generous hospitality for a quarter of a 

 century, and nowhere was he more entertaining that as host in Ms own home. He was full 

 of humor and could tell most amusingly of Ms experiences in early life and of his travels. It 

 has been the writer's good fortune to make many railroad trips with him, and he was always 

 a most agreeable companion. He was shy and restive in larger compames where he was not 

 well acquainted with the other guests, and was often qmte nervous before giving a lecture on 

 a subject with wMch he was perfectly familiar. After he was well started in an address he 

 qmte lost tMs shyness and would describe the intimate details of Ms pictures in a charming way. 

 He never spoke more mterestingly than in one of Ms last lectures wMch he gave one evening, 

 on the subject of comets, at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society, at the Yerkes 

 Observatory, in September, 1922. 



Mr. Barnard's delicious vein of humor was very familiar to Ms mtimate friends. He 

 could tell of some of Ms varied experiences in a distinctly original manner. Conformity to the 

 latest fasMon was of no special concern to him. He was accustomed to wear a black tie of a 

 type perhaps more familiar in the seventies, though evidently somehow procurable even at the 

 present time. TMs variety is .mounted on a pasteboard frame, and is attached, rather pre- 

 cariously, to the collar button by a small elastic cord. Accidental detachment was, therefore, 

 of frequent occurrence; in fact, the presence or absence of the tie was sometimes used by a 

 friend as a test of vision; but to the suggestion that a more modern type of tie, the ldnd that 

 passes around the neck of the wearer, might save the mconvemence of perpetual uncertamty 

 as to whether or not the tie was attached, the reply was made by Mr. Barnard: "Why, this 

 kind of tie once saved my life!" To the surprised inqmrer he added: "You see, I was at the 

 Grand Canyon, and looldng down mto that vast chasm, suddenly the tie fell off and floated 

 down half a mile into the depths below. What if it had been around my neck!" 



