300 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



The Associate Fellows whom we have lost are Professor Joseph S. 

 Hubbard, of Class I., Section 1 ; Major Edward B. Hunt, of Class I., 

 Section 3 ; General Joseph G. Totten, of Class I., Section 4 ; and Dr. 

 Francis Boott, of Class II., Section 2. 



Joseph Stillman Hubbard, well known for his efficient and 

 thorough work in promoting the progress of astronomy in this country, 

 died in New Haven, on the 16th of August, 1863. He was born in 

 New Haven, September 7th, 1823, and received his education and 

 formed his tastes for mathematical and astronomical pursuits in Yale 

 College, where he was graduated in 184'3, He was then for a short 

 time engaged as an assistant in the High School Observatory in Phila- 

 delphia, under the distinguished astronomer. Sears C. Walker, and was 

 subsequently employed in the reduction of the astronomical observa- 

 tions of the Rocky Mountain expedition under General Fremont. 

 But it is with the annals of the Naval Observatory at Washington that 

 his career as an astronomer and mathematician is chiefly associated. 

 Appointed a Professor in the United States Navy in the spring of 

 1846, he was assigned to duty in this Observatory, which was then but 

 recently established, and he remained at this post, a faithful and careful 

 observer, for a period of seventeen years, until the time of his death. 

 With the history and success of this Observatory Professor Hubbard's 

 name is indissolubly connected. In the part which the Observatory 

 took in the memorable discovery of the planet Neptune, it was his good 

 fortune to verify by observation the happy conjecture of Sears C. 

 Walker, that the planet had been observed by the astronomer Lalande 

 as a fixed star, and that a particular star would be found to have dis- 

 appeared from the place assigned to it in Lalande's Catalogue in 1795, 

 more than fifty years before its discovery as a planet. The Annals of 

 the Naval Observatory contain the chief part of the astronomical pub- 

 lications of Professor Hubbard. In addition to the regular work of an 

 observer, he prepared, in conjunction with Professor Coffin, a valuable 

 series of " Tables for the Reduction of the Places of the Fixed Stars," 

 which were published in an appendix to the observations of 1847. He 

 also prepared a useful table for facilitating the use of Gauss's formulas 

 for ellipses and hyperbolas of which the eccentricities are nearly equal 

 to unity. This was published in the Appendix to the translation of 

 Gauss's Theoria Motus, ^c.^ by Commander (now Admiral) Davis. 

 In all his work he manifested more solicitude for real excellence than 

 for a temporary reputation. Domestic cares, straitened pecuniary 



