SKETCH OF ELI AS LOO MIS. 411 



the movement of the auroral display and its correspondence with 

 magnetic movements on the earth ; the velocity of the auroral 

 wave ; the distribution of auroras over the earth's surface ; their 

 occurrence in the Southern Hemisphere ; their periodicity ; and 

 other points, with the discussion of which the world has since 

 become familiar. In these investigations and in those on other 

 subjects Prof. Loomis was ever intent. Prof. Newton says, upon 

 answering the questions, "What are the laws of Nature ? What 

 do the phenomena teach us ? " To establish laws which had been 

 already formulated by others, but which still needed confirma- 

 tion, was to him equally important with the formulation and 

 proof of laws entirely new." 



Prof. Loomis was a prolific writer. The list of his books and 

 papers comprises one hundred and sixty-four titles upon every 

 topic of the sciences in which he was especially interested with 

 which he came in contact, recording the results of his experiments 

 and their different stages. What are perhaps his most important 

 papers were the series of Contributions to Meteorology which, 

 beginning in April, 187-4, he communicated twice a year to the 

 National Academy of Sciences, and afterward to the American 

 Journal of Science, in which they furnished the leading articles 

 in eighteen volumes. In them were discussed the results of the 

 Signal-Service observations and the subjects of European publica- 

 tions in meteorology. A revision of the papers was begun in 

 1884, on which he labored for the rest of his life, and was given 

 to the public in three chapters, the third chapter, discussing the 

 theory of storms, appearing in 1889. In connection with his col- 

 lege lectures on meteorology he published a treatise on the sub- 

 ject in 1868, which, "notwithstanding the rapid advances of the 

 science during more than twenty years, is still indispensable to 

 the student of meteorology." He published in 1850 a volume on 

 The Recent Progress of Astronomy, especially in the United 

 States, which went through two editions, and was then rewritten 

 and enlarged. It was followed by the Introduction to Practical 

 Astronomy and by popular articles in periodicals. During his 

 connection with the University of New York he prepared a series 

 of text-books in mathematics. The series comprised nearly 

 twenty volumes on the subjects from arithmetic up, and, being 

 well adapted to the requirements of teachers, has proved highly 

 useful and successful. Not in the line of science, but a work of 

 industry useful and interesting to all concerned, is the Loomis 

 Genealogy, for which he made inquiries on each of his four visits 

 to Europe, and entered into personal correspondence with every 

 family of Loomis in the United States of which he could hear, 

 and which grew till it contained the names of 8,680 descendants 

 in the male and 19,000 in the female line, of Joseph Loomis, the 



