xii OBITUARY NOTICES. 
eight editions, and with his Zravels in the Air, Diurnal Range 
Tables, Report on the Meteorology of India and Meteorology of Pat- 
estine, are among his chief writings. In the interests of meteorol- 
ogy he made twenty-nine balloon ascensions in four years. In the 
one of September 5, 1862, he and his companion attained the high- 
est distance from the earth (37,000 feet) ever reached. He was a 
pioneer in the systematic organization of meteorological observa- 
tions. In 1850 he was one of the founders of the Royal Meteoro- 
logical Society, being its original Secretary, ‘‘ who nursed it through 
its infancy and youth, and left it to other hands only when it was 
-old enough and strong enough to walk alone.’’ He passed away 
February 7, 1903. 
Pror. WILLIAM HarkKNEss was born in Scotland on December 17, 
4839. He died at Jersey City, N. J., U.S. A., February 28, 1903. 
From Science we learn that he graduated in 1858 as an A.B. from 
“Syracuse University, from which institution he also received the de- 
-grees of A.M. (1861) and LL.D. (1874). In 1862 he received the 
-degree of M.D. from a New York school, and in August of that year 
became aid to the U. S. Naval Observatory. In August, 1863, he 
was commissioned Professor of Mathematics in the Navy with the 
rank of lieutenant-commander. From October, 1865, to June, 
1866, he served on the U. S. Monitor Monadnock, making obser- 
vations on the behavior of her compasses under the influence of the 
heavy iron armor of the ship. This was the most elaborate discus- 
sion of the behavior of compasses on armed ships that has ever been 
made. His report was published by the Smithsonian Institution in 
a volume of 225 quarto pages. On his return to Washington he 
was attached to the Hydrographic Office for one year, and thereafter 
for seven years to the Naval Observatory, during which period he 
observed the total solar eclipse at Des Moines, Iowa, and discovered 
the famous coronal line KX 1474, also the total solar eclipse of De- 
cember 22, 1870, at Syracuse, Sicily, and in 1871 was appointed 
one of the original members of the U.S. Transit of Venus Com- 
mission to arrange for the observation of the transits of that planet 
in 1874 and in 1882. He devised most of the instruments for the 
purpose and fitted out the various expeditions in this country. His 
own station was at Hobart, Tasmania. 
In 1875 he studied the observations of the U. S. parties from 
a series of wet collodion photographs on glass plates. He suc- 
