SIMON NEWCOMB 



ASTRONOMER 



1835-1909 

 BY MARCUS BENJAMIN 



"To him the wandering stars revealed 

 The secrets in their cradle sealed; 

 The far-off, frozen sphere that swings 

 Through ether, zoned with lucid rings; 

 The orb that rolls in dim eclipse 

 Wide wheeling, round its long ellipse, 

 His name Urania writes with these, 

 And stamps it on her Pleiades." 



THESE lines written by Oliver Wendell Holmes on one of Har- 

 vard's most eminent men of science apply with even greater force 

 to Simon Newcomb, who by common consent had achieved the 

 reputation of being the foremost astronomer of his time and easily 

 succeeded to the honor of being the world's Nestor of Science on 

 the death of Lord Kelvin. Sir Robert S. Ball, formerly Astrono- 

 mer Royal of Ireland and now Director of the Astronomical 

 Observatory in Cambridge, England, wrote of him: "Science has 

 sustained one of the most severe blows of recent years. America 

 has lost her most eminent man of science, and not since the death 

 of Adams has the world been deprived of so illustrious an investiga- 

 tor in theoretical astronomy." He was, says the same writer, 

 "the most conspicuous figure among the brilliant band of contem- 

 porory American astronomers." 



Simon Newcomb was the sixth in descent from Simon Newcomb 

 who was born in Massachusetts, in 1666, and died in Lebanon, 



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