748 A MEMOIR OF ELIAS LOOMIS. 



Shortly after the publication of this memoir, Professor Lovering pub- 

 lished his extensive catalogue of auroras. A further discussion of the 

 periodicity of the auroras was undertaken by Professor Loomis and 

 published in 1873. In this he made use of all the auroras recorded in 

 Professor Loverin^'s catalogue. They coniirmed his previous conclu- 

 sions, only slight modifications being required by the new facts pre- 

 sented, and by their more systematic collation. 



In these papers, as in most of his papers upon other subjects, Profes- 

 sor Loomis was ever intent 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 confirmation, was to him equally important with the formulation 

 and proof of laws entirely new. 



Let us now turn to another important line of Professor Loomis's 

 work — astronomy. As I have said, he was early interested in the 

 shooting stars. In October, 1831, he read a paper before the Connect- 

 icut Academy of Arts and Sciences upon this subject, probably in sub- 

 stance that which was shortly afterward published in the American 

 Journal of Science. The jiublished paper is principally a re-statement 

 of the observations made in Germany in 1823, by Brandes in concert 

 with his pupils for determining the paths of the stars through the atmos- 

 phere, together with methods of computation. From the results of 

 Brandes's observations, however, he deduces an argument for the cos- 

 mic character of the shooting stars. One month after reading this 

 paper to the Connecticut Academy he engaged in similar concerted 

 observations with Professor Twining, who was then residing near West 

 Point, New York. These were only moderately successful, but they 

 were the first observations of the kind undertaken in America. 



During the senior year of his college course there arrived at New 

 Haven the 5 inch telescope, given to the college by Mr. Sheldon Clark, 

 constructed by Dolland. This instrument was much larger than any 

 telescope then in the country. It was temporarily placed in the Athe- 

 neum tower, where" it was mounted on castors and wheeled to tlie win- 

 dows for use. This temporary abode it occupied however for over 30 

 years. In spite of its miserable location it was, in the decade follow- 

 ing its installment, a power in the development of the study of astron- 

 omy in the college. The lives and works of Barnard, and Loomis, and 

 Mason, and Herrick, and Lyman, and Chauvenet, and Hubbard, and of 

 other graduates of the college prove this. What rich returns for Mr. 

 Sheldon Clark's $1,200 investment ! 



In 1835, the return of Halley's comet had been predicted, and its ap- 

 pearance was eagerly expected by astronomers and the public; Pro- 

 fessor Olmsted and Tutor Loomis first in this country caught sight of 

 the stranger, and throughout its course they noted its physical appear- 

 ances. W^ith such means as he had at command, Mr. Loomis observed 

 the body's place, and computed from his observations the orbit. 



