892 EDWARD SINGLETON HOLDEN. 



Harvard College Observatory while his cousin, Professor George P. 

 Bond, was director of that institution (1859-65). Mr. Holden mar- 

 ried Professor Chauvenet's daughter Mary in the year 1871. 



During the years 1866-70 Mr. Holden was a cadet in the U. S. 

 Military Academy at West Point, graduating in the latter year. 

 He ranked third in his class. In 1870-71 he was Second Lieutenant 

 in the Fourth U. S. Artillary, in the following year Instructor in 

 Natural Philosophy in the Military Academy, and in 1872-73 In- 

 structor in Practical Military Engineering. In 1872 he published an 

 octavo treatise on " The Bastion System of Fortifications, Its Defects 

 and Their Remedies." 



In March, 1873, Lieutenant Holden resigned his commission in 

 the army to accept appointment as Professor of Mathematics in the 

 U. S. Navy, for service as astronomer in the U. S. Naval Observatory 

 at Washington. There he came at once into close personal relations 

 with Simon Newcomb, serving as assistant to Newcomb with the just 

 completed 26-inch Clark refracting telescope. It is clear from 

 historical developments, as well as from passages in Newcomb's 

 "The Reminiscences of an Astronomer," that Newcomb was tre- 

 mendously impressed with Holden's energy and ability. When Mr. 

 D. O. Mills, President of James Lick's first Board of Trustees, went 

 tc Washington in 1874 to consult with Newcomb concerning plans 

 for the projected Lick Observatory, Newcomb "suggested that a 

 director of the new establishment should be chosen in advance of 

 beginning active work, o that everything should be done under his 

 supervision. As such director I suggested that very likely Professor 

 Holden, then my assistant on the great equatorial, might be well 

 qualified." 



It is an illuminating comment upon Professor Holden's promise as 

 an astronomer of the future that he should be recommended, and I 

 think tentatively selected, as the director of the proposed Lick Ob- 

 servatory, to contain the largest and most powerful telescope in 

 existence, at a time when his astronomical experience had covered 

 little more than one year. Professor Holden was then less than 

 twenty-eight years of age. 



Professor Holden went to London in 1876 as a delegate from the 

 U. S. Government to examine and report upon the South Kensington 

 Loan Collection of Scientific Instruments, especially as to improve- 

 ments in the astronomjcal and geodetical instruments. 



While on the staff of the Na^•al Observatory, Professor Holden 

 mafle himself A'erv familiar with the literature of astronomy; he 



