A MEMOIR OF ELIAS LOOMIS. 743 



of his letters lie congratulates liiniself that all of his bills that were 

 more than 2 years old had been i)aid. Jn another he says that there 

 was not eno'jgh money in the college treasury to take him out of the 

 state. When heleft Iludsoii theeollege effered to pay at once the arrears 

 of his salary by deeding to him some of its unimj)roved lands. 



In 1844 he was offered, and he a(;cei)ted, the office of professor of 

 uiathemaucs and natural philosophy in the university of New York. 

 In this new position he undertook the preparation of a series of text 

 books in the mathematics, and for some years a large part of the time 

 which he could spare from his regular college work was given to the 

 preparation of these books. 



When Professor Henry resigned his professorship at Princeton in 

 order to accept the oflSce of Secretary of the Smithsoniau Institution 

 Professor Loomis was offered the vacant chair. He went to Princeton 

 and remained there during 1 year, at the end of which he was induced 

 to return again to his old place in the university of New York. Here 

 he. continued untd 18C0, when he was elected to the professorship in 

 Yale College mside vacant by the death of Professor Olmsted. For the 

 last 29 years of his life he here labored for the college and for science, 

 parsing away on the 15th of August, 1889. 



Let us look now in succession at the different lines of his activity dur- 

 ing these 5G years, — 4 here in the tutorship and in Europe, 7 at Hud- 

 son, Ohio, IG in New York City and Piinceton, and 29 in New Haven. 



For the first year on returning from Andover to New Haven he was 

 tutor in Latin, although it seems that he might, had he chosen it, have 

 been tutor of mathematics. I believe that at the beginning his mind 

 was not yet definitely turned toward the exact sciences. In his child- 

 hood he had taken specially to Greek. In college he was equally pro- 

 ficient in all of his studies. He is represented to have led his class at 

 Andover in Hebrew, and now on entering the tutorship he chose to 

 teach the Latin langnage and literature. During the second year he 

 taught mathematics and the third year natural philosophy. His later 

 success in scientific work was, I believe, in no small measure due to his 

 earlier broad and thorough study of language. 



I have made some inquiry in or<ler to learn what it was that turned 

 his attention and tastes toward science. One of his colleagues in the 

 tutorship, the Rev. Dr. Davenport, says that he recollects very dis- 

 tinctly the first indication to his own mind that Tutor Loomis was turn- 

 ing his thoughts in this direction. The great meteoric showor of 1833 

 came early in the period of his tutorship, and the views of Professor 

 Twining and J'rofessor Olmsted about the astronomical character and 

 origin of these interesting and mysteru)us bodies were a common topic 

 of conversation among scientific men in the college, especially when- 

 ever Professor Olmsted was present. The tutors were accustomed to 

 meet as a club from time to time in the tutors' rooms in turn, and Dr. 

 Davenport well recollects the occasion when Tutor Loomis brought in 



