326 ELIAS LOOMIS. 



with it, is the Aurora Borealis. Observations and discussions of an 

 exceedingly brilliant display of Northern Lights, which occurred in 

 1859, were given to the public by Professor Loomis during the follow- 

 ing two years, in a series of nine papers in the American Journal of 

 Science. In 1870 he published a paper of importance relating to 

 terrestrial magnetism, in which he showed its connection and that of 

 the aurora with spots on the sun. A further discussion of the pe- 

 riodicity of the auroras was undertaken by Professor Loomis, and 

 published in 1873. 



Astronomy. — Another important line of Professor. Loomis's work 

 was Practical Astronomy. While in Europe in 1836-37 he bought 

 for Western Reserve College the instruments for an observatory. 

 These were a four-inch equatorial, a transit instrument, and an 

 astronomical clock. On his return he erected, in 1837, a small ob- 

 servatory at Hudson, and in September, 1838, began to use the instru- 

 ments. It may not seem a very large output of work in six years' 

 time to have determined the location of the observatory, and to have 

 observed five comets. But we must remember that the telegraph had 

 not then been mvented, that the exact determination of the longitude 

 of a single point in the Western country had a higher value then than 

 it can have now, and that it could be obtamed only by slow and 

 tedious methods. These were moreover, days of small thmgs in 

 astronomy in this country. At Yale College there was a telescope, 

 but not an observatory. At Williamstown an observatory had been 

 constructed, but it was used for instruction, not for original work. At 

 Washington Lieutenant Gilliss, and at Dorchester Mr. Bond, were 

 commissioned by the government in 1838 to observe moon culmina- 

 tions, in correspondence with the observers in the Wilkes Exploring 

 Expedition, for determining their longitude. These two prospective 

 sets of observations, both of them under government auspices and pay, 

 were the only signs of systematic astronomical activity in the United 

 States outside of Hudson, when in 1838 Professor Loomis began his 

 observing there. 



In the summer of 1844, a new method in astronomy had its begin- 

 nings. The telegraph line had just been built between Baltimore and 

 Washington, and Captain Wilkes at Baltimore compared his chro- 

 nometer by telegraph with one at Washington, and so determined the 

 difference of longitude of the two places. This method was imme- 

 diately utilized by Professor Bache in the Coast Survey, and for three 

 seasons Professor Loomis aided Mr. Walker in developing the new 

 method, and making it practically useful. 



