I04 



NATURE 



[July 22, 1909 



boasted medical skill, was no more than an ignorant 

 pretender, and that the time of his assistant would 

 be utterly wasted instead of being, as he expected, 

 expended' on studying botany and scientific medicine. 

 So on September 13, 1853, Newcomb determined 

 to run away after leaving a letter for the doctor, in 

 which he explained that, as the doctor had shown no 

 indication of fulfilling his promises, his assistant felt 

 that the arrangement was annulled. Newcomb was 

 on the road before daybreak, and walked until late 

 at night, ever fearing pursuit from the doctor. It 

 appears that the doctor did actually attempt a pursuit, 

 but, by good fortune, Newcomb eluded recapture, and 

 at last reached a house where he was hospitably enter- 

 tained. " Thus ended," he says, " a day which 1 have 

 always looked back to as the most memorable in my 

 Hfe." 



After a week of hardship, which Newcomb says he 

 will not harrow the feelings of the reader by de- 

 scribing, he arrived at Calais, where he found a boat 

 bound for Salem. The little money that he had in 

 his pocket was less than the price of the passage, 

 but he undertook to supplement the deficiency by 

 working his way. A few months later we find him 

 engaged as a teacher in a school at a place called 

 Massey's Cross Roads, in Kent County, and devoting 

 every spare hour to reading whatever mathematical 

 books he could obtain. His first appearance as an 

 author was in refutation of a Mr. Evelcth, who 

 doubted the Copernican system, and Newcomb pub- 

 lished in the National Intelligencer an exposition 

 of the fallacies in the paradoxer's essay. In 1856 he 

 was teaching in the family of a planter, near Wash- 

 ington, and on a visit to the library of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution he was delighted to see among the 

 mathematical books the greatest treasure that his 

 imagination had ever pictured, a work that he had 

 thought of almost as belonging to fairyland — La- 

 place's " M^canique Celeste." Shortly afterwards he 

 summoned up enough courage to seek for an inter- 

 view with Prof. Henry, who suggested that he should 

 look for some position in the Coast Survey, and his 

 reception by Mr. Hilgard was such that Newcomb 

 writes : — " I found from my first interview w-ith him 

 that the denizens of the world of light were up to the 

 most sanguine conceptions I ever could have formed." 

 Mr. Hilgard introduced him to Prof. Winlock, of 

 Cambridge, Mass., and thus in 1857 he entered " the 

 world of sweetness and light " by becoming one of 

 the computers in " The American Ephemeris and 

 Nautical Almanac." 



From this time the progress of Newcomb to the 

 height of astronomical fame was unchecked. Dr. 

 Gould, the well-known astronomer, wrote to tell him 

 that there was a vacancy in the Corps of Professors 

 of Mathematics attached to the Naval Observatory at 

 Washington, and suggested that he might like the 

 post. Newcomb at first was disinclined to consider 

 the proposition. Cambridge seemed to him the focus 

 of the science and learning of his country. He also 

 rather shrank from what he called the drudgery of 

 night work in the observatory, for he considered 

 that it would interfere with the mathematical investi- 

 gations in which he was specially interested ; but he 

 finally decided to apply, and a month later, September, 

 1861, was much gratified in receiving the appointment 

 duly signed by Abraham Lincoln. Newcomb accord- 

 ingly settled in Washington, where he married, in 

 1863, Mary Caroline, daughter of Dr. C. A. Hassler, 

 U.S. Navy, and three daughters were the issue of 

 the marriage. 



In the winter of 1870 Mr. Cyrus Field, of Atlantic 



cable fame, had a small dinner-party at the Arlington 



Hotel, Washington. A young son of Mr. Field's was 



present, who had spent the day in seeing the sights 



NO. 2073, VOL. 81] 



of Washington. The youth described his visit to the 

 observatory, and expressed his surprise in not finding 

 any large telescope. The guests were at first incredu- 

 lous, but, finding that the statement was true, a 

 senator who was present declared that this must be 

 rectified, and in due course Alvan Clark and Sons 

 were entrusted with the manufacture of a great objec- 

 tive of 26-inches aperture. 



Newcomb was specially interested in this enterprise, 

 because, as he says, " the work of reconstructing 

 the tables of the planets, which I had long before 

 mapped out as the greatest one in which I should 

 engage, required as exact a knowledge as could be 

 obtained of the masses of all the planets. In the 

 case of LVanus and Neptune, the two other planets, 

 this knowledge could best be obtained by observations 

 on their satellites. To the latter my attention was 

 therefore directed." In 1875 the instrument was 

 given over to Prof. Asaph Hall, and of course it has 

 become for ever famous as the means by which Hall 

 made his beautiful discovery of the two satellites of 

 Mars. 



In Newcomb's "Reminiscences" we find, in a' 

 chapter on " The Author's Scientific Work," a most 

 interesting sketch of the great problems to the 

 solution of which his life's work was devoted. It 

 appears that the first important investigation on which 

 he entered in his early years at Cambridge, Mass., 

 related to the orbits of the asteroids. This particular 

 investigation discussed the theory that these bodies 

 originated as fragments of a large planet broken up 

 by some cataclysm. It involved an extended examina- 

 tion of the secular perturbations of the orbits of the 

 asteroids to determine whether at any epoch even 

 hundreds of thousands of years ago all the orbits 

 passed through one point, though by the influence 

 of perturbations they have now ceased to do so. The 

 investigation seems to show that no such catgclysm 

 as that looked for ever occurred, and that each of the 

 asteroids has been a separate body since the solar 

 system came into existence. 



Another problem which shows the lines of 

 thought habitually present to Newcomb may be thus 

 stated. Do the mutual attractions of the sun, planets, 

 and satellites completely explain all the motions in 

 the solar system? or, as he expressed it, " Does any 

 world move otherwise than as it is attracted by other 

 worlds? " This opens up two great researches : first, 

 in bringing the labours of astronomers together so as 

 to determine with the utmost accuracy the actual 

 movements of the heavenly bodies, and, second, in 

 securing all attainable perfection in the mathematical 

 methods employed in their examination. A very im- 

 portant branch of this inquiry is presented by the 

 movements of the moon. Such an investigation as 

 Newcomb sketched out had a stimulating effect 

 on the discussion of old and valuable observations of 

 the positions of the moon deduced from ancient 

 eclipses, and much of Newcomb's best work was done 

 in connection with the lunar theory. 



In 1875 Newcomb was offered the position in 

 Harvard University which is now filled with such dis- 

 tinction bv Prof. Pickering, but he declined this offer 

 after careful consideration. On September 15, 1877, 

 he was appointed editor of " The American Ephemeris 

 and Nautical Almanac." He tells us that " the 

 change was one of the happiest of my life. I was 

 now in a position of recognised responsibility where 

 my recommendations met with the respect due to 

 that responsibility, where I could make plans with 

 the assurance of being able to carry them out." 

 He approached the duties of this office in the loftiest 

 spirit, and devoted his energies to the task of im- 

 proving the fundamental constants employed. With 

 this object in view, extensive investigations in 



