SIMON NEWCOMB 369 



computer in the office of the Nautical Almanac. It may be said 

 that this office was established near Harvard University so as to 

 be able to profit by the technical knowledge of experts, especially 

 that of Prof. Benjamin Peirce, then generally accepted as the 

 leading mathematician of America. The office remained in Cam- 

 bridge until 1866 when it was removed to Washington. New- 

 comb's idea of the work may be understood best perhaps by his 

 own presentation of the subject. He says: 



"Supply any man with the fundamental data of astronomy, the 

 times at which stars and planets cross the meridian of a place, and 

 other matters of this kind. He is informed that each of these 

 bodies whose observations he is to use is attracted by all the others 

 with a force which varies as the inverse square of their distance 

 apart. From these data he is to weigh the bodies, predict their 

 motion in all future time, compute their orbits, determine what 

 changes of form and position these orbits will undergo through 

 thousands of ages, and make maps showing exactly over what 

 cities and towns on the surface of the earth an eclipse of the sun 

 will pass fifty years hence, or over what regions it did pass thou- 

 sands of years ago. A more hopeless problem than this could not 

 be presented to the ordinary human intellect. The men who have 

 done it are therefore in intellect the select few of the human race. 

 The astronomical ephemeris is the last practical outcome of their 

 productive genius." 



Newcomb, gifted with that appreciation of opportunities that 

 indicates the man of genius, was quick to realize the advantages 

 of a closer relation to the University in Cambridge and therefore 

 enrolled himself as a student of mathematics in the Lawrence 

 Scientific School where he pursued studies in that and kindred 

 branches of learning under the eminent Benjamin Peirce. He 

 received the degree of Bachelor of Science in 1858, and thereafter 

 for three years was continued on the rolls of the University as a 

 resident graduate. 



The eclipse of the sun that occurred in 1860 was total in certain 

 parts of British America, and it had fallen to Newcomb to com- 

 pute the path of the shadow and the times of crossing certain 

 points in it for the records of the office of the Nautical Almanac. 

 It was therefore but natural that he should be selected to accom- 



