388 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



office as their president without the usual preliminary elections to 

 the subordinate offices of manager and vice-president, and during 

 the year of his incumbency he showed the utmost interest in the 

 duties of the place, aiding materially in the progress of the Club 

 by his many suggestions and excellent advice. His trips abroad 

 were elaborately planned, and he always made careful preparation 

 by reading volume after volume on the countries to be visited. A 

 thorough study of his subject in the beginning led to a better 

 appreciation of it afterwards. 



Industry and persistency, combined with an intellect that 

 enabled him to grasp the elements of a problem and conquer them, 

 were the dominant traits of Newcomb's character. To these 

 should be added the fact that he found his pleasure and recreation 

 in pursuits that to many would have been hard work, but to him 

 they were relaxation. Whatever came to him he did well and as 

 genius may be denned as that quality of mind that develops its own 

 environment then surely among the great men of the world, New- 

 comb was one of the very greatest. 



Newcomb's last days were typical of his life, for they exhibited 

 in a marked degree the characteristics of his genius. In the autumn 

 of 1908 he returned from a trip abroad strengthened in mind and 

 in body, eager to bring to a conclusion his great work on the Motion 

 of the Moon, the completion of which had been so long deferred. 

 A meeting of the Overseers of Harvard called him to Cambridge 

 and on his return the symptoms of the fatal malady began to show 

 themselves. Several visits to specialists in Baltimore failed to 

 give him relief, but the disease was definitely diagnosed as cancer 

 and located so as to make an operation impossible. When New- 

 comb was told that recovery could not be expected he asked to 

 be brought home at once, and with that wonderful power of con- 

 centration, in moments of freedom from pain, he dictated the 

 final words of his last contribution to science. On June 16 it 

 was finished and then turned over to the printer. But the end 

 was not yet, and for a month longer he continued to work prepar- 

 ing chapters for his biography and putting his business affairs in 

 final shape. 



