OF ARTS AND SCIENCES : MAT 29, 1866. 123 



Hamilton, Whewell, Sir William Hooker, Lindley, Admirals Smyth 

 and Duperrey, all distinguished in the walks of science, and most of 

 them illustrious for their original investigations. 



John Francis Encke was born in Hamburg, September 23, 1791. 

 His father was a deacon in the Jacobi Church. After completing the 

 course of study of the college or gymnasium in Hamburg, he entered 

 the University of Gottingen in October, 1811, where he remained a 

 student under the instructions of Gauss until the spring of 1813, when 

 he entered the army and marched to Hamburg for the rescue of his 

 country from the domination of the French. After the fall of Ham- . 

 burg he entered the Hanseatic Legion, and served in the horse artillery 

 until June, 1814. In the autumn of this year he returned to Gottingen 

 and resumed his studies. In 1815 he entered the Prussian service for 

 a short time. After the battle of Waterloo and the restoration of peace 

 he completed his studies under Gauss, and was appointed assistant to 

 Lindenau, in the Observatory of Lemburg, in 1816. He received the 

 title of Professor in 1818, of Vice-Director in 1820, and in 1822 he 

 succeeded Lindenau as Director of the Observatory. In 1825, at the 

 recommendation of Bessel, he was appointed Director of the Observa- 

 tory at Berlin. He died in Spandau, of disease of the brain, on the 

 26th of August, 1865, having been relieved from all astronomical work, 

 in consequence of the approach of the disease, from the beginning of 

 1864 up to the time of his death. 



It would be impossible within the limits of such a notice as this to 

 give anything like a detailed account of the services to science of this 

 great astronomer. The bare enumeration of the titles of his many valua- 

 ble papers would exceed them, and in fact such a notice of his work is 

 not necessary here. The name of no one of the great astronomers of 

 this century is more familiarly known in America than that of Encke, 

 and his published labors have instructed astronomers in all parts of the 

 world. They may be found, for the beginning of his career, in Lach's 

 Correspondence and Lindenau's Zeitschrift, and, later, in the supplement 

 to the Berlin Jahrhuch, in the Memoirs and Monthly Reports of the 

 Berlin Academy, in the Astronomische Nachrichten, and in the volumes 

 of the Berlin Observations. 



It may be that Encke has contributed most to the advancement of 

 his favorite science in Europe by the improvements that he introduced 

 into the Berlin Ephemeris, by the character that he impressed on the 

 Berlin Observatory, and by the pupils that he trained during his forty 



