340 JOSEPH WIXLOCK. 



before the clay's work began. Fortunately for himself and for science, 

 he attended the fifth meeting of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, which was held at Cincinnati in the spring 

 of IHol. It is not among the least of the advantages of this associa- 

 tion that it brings into notice young men of promise who might other- 

 wise live and die in obscurity, revealing to themselves as well as to 

 others, by comparison, their rare intellectual endowments. In this 

 case, the chief of American mathematicians recognized, in the Ken- 

 tucky professor, one who had mastered and enjoyed his own highly 

 condensed treatises, however distasteful they may have been to com- 

 monplace students and teachers. This happy conjunction of kindred 

 minds resulted in bringinor Mr. Winlock to CambricJore in 1852. Cam- 

 bridge was, at that time, the headquarters of the American Ephemeris 

 and Nautical Almanac ; a great work, ordered by Congress in the Act 

 of March 3, 1819, and placed under the superintendence of Lieutenant 

 (now Admiral) C. H. Davis. Mr. Winlock joined the able corps of 

 computers, on whose ability and fidelity the life of the Almanac 

 depended, and remained in this service until 1857, when he was ap- 

 pointed Professor of Mathematics in the United States Naval Obser- 

 vatory at Washington. He had been in this new position for only a 

 short time when he was made Superintendent of the Ephemeris and 

 Almanac, and returned to Cambridge. 



He vacated this post in 1859, and removed to Annapolis, where he 

 had charge of the mathematical department in the United States Naval 

 Academy. Soon after the removal of the Academy to Newport, in 

 consequence of the war of secession, he was again made Superintend- 

 ent of the Ephemeris and Almanac, and lived in Cambridge. During 

 his long though interrupted connection with this national work, which 

 has contributed lai-gely to the cultivation as well as to the credit of 

 mathematics and astronomy in this country, he made many valuable 

 contribittions to it, among which his carefully prepared Tables of Mer- 

 cury was the most important. 



In 1866, with no effort on his part, he received the ajipointment of 

 Phillips Professor of Astronomy in Harvard College, and Director of 

 the Observatory. To his titles was afterwards added that of Professor 

 of Geodesy in the Lawrence and Mining Schools of the College. 

 While he was Professor at Shelby College, he had made himself 

 familiar with tin; construction and manipulation of the etpiatorial tele- 

 scope. An excellent Merz instrument of this desciiption, having a 

 focal length of 9.\ feet and an aperture of 7\ inches, was the property 

 of that institution, and was afterwards borrowdl by Mr. Winlock, and 



