OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (PETERS.) 



659 



lub, President of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine 

 Arts, and a director of the Investment Company and 

 of the United Security and Trust Company. His 

 fortune amounted to several million dollars. He 

 bequeathed a total of $854jOOO to relatives and per- 

 sonal friends, and the remainder of his estate to local 

 charitable and educational institutions. His public 

 bequests were as follow : $150,000 to the trustees of 

 .a public library to be established in Philadelphia, 

 east'of Schuylkill river and south of Market Street; 

 $60,000 to the University of Pennsylvania for the en- 

 dowment of a professorship ; $50,000 to the Pennsyl- 

 vania Academy of Fine Arts ; $50,000 to the Hospi- 

 tal of the University of Pennsylvania; $50,000 to the 

 Presbyterian Hospital; $50,000 to the Hospital of the 

 Protestant Episcopal Church ; $50,000 to Pennsyl- 

 vania Hospital ; $50,000 to tire Hospital of Jeffer- 

 son Medical University ; $25,000 to the Charity Hos- 

 pital ; $25,000 to St. Joseph's Hospital ; $25,000 to 

 the Children's Hospital ; $25,000 to St. Christopher's 

 Hospital for Children ; $25,000 to the Maternity Hos- 

 pital ; $25,000 to the Academy of Natural Sciences ; 

 $25,000 to the Franklin Institute ; $25,000 to the Kit- 

 tenhouse Club for a library ; $20,000 to the Pennsyl- 

 vania Museum and School of Industrial Arts ; $15,000 

 to the Zoological Society ; $10,000 to the Hospital and 

 Dispensary of St. Clement's Church ; $10,000 to the 

 country branch of the Children's Hospital ; $10,000 

 to the Wills Hospital ; $10,000 to the Young Men's 

 Christian Association ; $10,000 each to the" Church 



uieiy : ^iu,uuv eaun tu me r muiueipma, commer- 

 cial, and Apprentices' Libraries ; $10, 000 to the Phila- 

 delphia Club for a library ; $5,000 each to the Art 

 Club, Union League (both for libraries), Northern 

 Dispensary, Southern Dispensary. Philadelphia Dis- 

 pensary, Howard Dispensary, Christmas Fund for 

 Disabled Clergymen, Southern Home for Destitute 

 Children, seven soup societies, the Societies for the 

 Prevention of Cruelty to Children and to Animals 

 (including the women's branch of the latter), the Day 

 Nursery for Children, the House of Befuge for White 

 Children, Indigent Widows' and Single Women's So- 

 ciety, Union Benevolent Society, Institution for the 

 Instruction of the Blind, Institution for the Educa- 

 tion of the Deaf and Dumb, Ladies' Dispensary, Mer- 

 chants' Fund, and the School of Design ; and" $3,000 

 each to the Mary Coles Home for Young Women, 

 Association for the Alleviation of the Miseries of the 

 Public Prisons, Society for the Employment and In- 

 struction of the Poor, the Temporary Home for Friend- 

 less Children^ the House of Refuge for Colored Chil- 

 dren, the Philadelphia Lying-in and Nurse Society, 

 the Young Men's Home, and the Sailors' Home a 

 total to be distributed within a year of $1,034,000. 

 The residue of his estate was bequeathed to trustees, 

 to be divided pro rata among the above-named insti- 

 tutions, and to be held by them in trust as endow 

 ment funds. 



Peters, Christian Henry Frederick, astronomer, born in 

 Coldenbuttel, Sohleswig (then a part of Denmark), 

 Sept. 19, 1813; died July 18, 1890. He was educated 

 at the University of Berlin, where, in 1836, he took 

 the degree of Ph. D., and then studied in Copenha- 

 gen. In 1838 he accompanied Baron Sartorius von 

 Walthershausen to Sicily, where, until 1843, he was 

 engaged in surveying Mount Etna. The death of 

 Walthershausen brought this work to a close, and 

 Dr. Peters entered the topographical survey of the 

 Sicilies. This work he relinquished to 'join the 

 revolutionists under Garibaldi, by whom he was 

 made major in the artillery for bravery on the field of 

 battle. When the insurrection was quelled a price 

 was put upon his head, but after numerous hardships 

 he escaped to Turkey, where he devoted himself to 

 astronomy. There he met George P. Marsh, the 

 United States minister, who persuaded him to come 

 to the United States. He settled in Cambridge, Mass., 

 and through the influence of Dr. Benjamin A. Gould 

 was appointed in 1853 to work on the United States 



Coast Survey. Subsequently he was transferred to 

 Albany, N. Y., where his irregularities and his atti- 

 tude toward Dr. Gould in the Dudley Observatory 

 controversy led to his retirement in 1857 from the 

 survey. Through the influence of friends in Albany 

 he was called in 1858 

 to Hamilton College, 

 as the first director 

 of the Litchfield Ob- 

 servatory in Clin- 

 ton, N." Y., which 

 place he held until 

 his death, as well as 

 that of Professor of 

 Astronomy, to which 

 he had been called 

 in 1867. His great 

 work was the obser- 

 vation of the zone 

 stars and placing 

 them on charts. At 

 the time of Herschel 

 not over 20,000 stars 

 were registered, and 

 this number was in- 

 creased to 50.000 by 

 Lalande, while Dr. "Peters proved and registered more 

 than 112,000, including stars as minute as the 13th 

 magnitude in his scheme. While examining stars to 

 determine their place he frequently discovered new 

 stars, and the finding of nearly 50 asteroids has been 

 placed to his credit, which is a larger number than 

 any other astronomer can claim. His last discovery 

 was on the night of Aug. 25, 1889, when he found 

 asteroid No. 287, which is probably the nearest one to 

 the sun yet discovered. The largest number of these 

 found by him in a single year (1879) was 8, and a 

 computation of the aggregate surface of 40 of them 

 indicates an area of 266,978 square miles, or about 

 that of the State of Texas. Dr. Peters fixed the 

 locality of the zodiacal stars upon charts, which pre- 

 sent an accurate picture of their parts of the sky, 

 and in 1884 20 of these "Celestial Charts" were 

 published by him at his own expense. A second 

 series was completed in 1888, but up to the time of 

 his death was unpublished. For ten years he made 

 a daily observation of solar spots, making a record of 

 nearly 14,000 spots, but these results are still unpub- 

 lished. This is regarded as his most valuable work, 

 as stellar photography makes possible the star charts 

 upon which he spent so much time. Under the au- 

 spices of the regents of the University of the Stat^ 

 of New York, he determined the longitude of several 

 places in this State, including the western boundary. 

 He had charge of a party that observed the solar 

 eclipse of Aug. 7, 1869, at Des Moines, Iowa, and was 

 chief of an expedition sent to New Zealand by the 

 United States Government to observe the transit of 

 Venus on Dec. 9, 1874. At that time he secured 237 

 photographs of the planet and his. work then gained 

 this praise: "There is no need of other observa- 

 tions. Dr. Peters has accomplished all that was to be 

 done." The results of his various researches are 

 found in scientific journals, but chiefly in the " As- 

 tronomische Nachrichten." He was a member of sci- 

 entific societies, both in this country and abroad, and 

 in 1876 was elected to the National Academy of Sci- 

 ences. He attended the International Congress of 

 Astronomers held, under the auspices of the French 

 Academy of Sciences, in Paris during April, 1887, and 

 at that time was made a chevalier of the Legion of 

 Honor by the French Government. He never mar- 

 ried, and was a man of extremely simple habits. 

 Among the students at college he was known as 

 " Twinkle," but he was a strict disciplinarian and al- 

 ways insisted that the dignity of his office be re- 



ion he was sustained by Profs. Simon Newcomb and 

 Asaph Hall, of the United States Naval Observatory. 



