36 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1359 



Dr. B. A. Gould, who had recently begun the 

 publication of the first astronomical journal 

 in the country devoted to research work. In 

 1854, through the influence of Dr. Gould, Mr. 

 StockweU was appointed a computer in the 

 Longitude Department of the United States 

 Coast Survey and moved to Cambridge, 

 Massachusetts, in order to carry on his work 

 under Dr. Gould's direction. 



Eight months later he returned to his 

 uncle's home in BrecksviUe and resumed his 

 farm work, giving all of his spare time, as 

 before, to mathematics and astronomy. Be- 

 fore 1860 he had mastered the methods of 

 computation of the lorbits of planets and 

 comets, and had computed the orbits of two 

 comets which appeared in 1853. He computed 

 the orbit, the perturbations and ephemeris of 

 Virginia, the fiftieth asteroid, for its opposi- 

 tion in 1859. These results were published in 

 the Astronomical Journal. In 1860 he pub- 

 lished a new method of solving a set of sym- 

 metrical equations having indeterminate coeffi- 

 cients. In addition to these investigations, 

 by 1860 he had begun a very extensive and 

 elaborate computation of the secular varia- 

 tions of the planetary orbits arising from 

 mutual attractions of each other. This work 

 was interrupted by the war, however, and was 

 not completed until 1872, when it was pub- 

 lished in the Smithsonian Contributions to 

 Knowledge. In 1861 he was given the posi- 

 tion of computer in the United States Ifaval 

 Observatory and continued in this work until 

 1864. At that time the United States Sani- 

 tary Commission, which had collected a large 

 quantity of statistics in regard to sanitary 

 conditions, requested Dr. Gould to reduce and 

 discuss them, and he in turn asked Mr. Stock- 

 well to assist him. 



One day, while in Cleveland, he was in- 

 quiring in a bookstore in regard to the non- 

 arrival from Europe of some books on the 

 theory of probabilities. Shortly after that the 

 book dealer mentioned this to Leonard Case, 

 afterwards the founder of Case School of 

 Applied Science, who said that he would loan 

 these books to Mr. Stockwell as he happened 

 to have them in his library. This act led to 



the acquaintance and friendship between these 

 two men which continued for many years. 

 Through the influence of Mr. Case, Mr. 

 Stockwell soon afterwards moved to Cleveland 

 and lived there during the remainder of his 

 life. Mr. Case, a graduate of Tale Univer- 

 sity and a great lover of mathematics, per- 

 suaded Mr. Stockwell to undertake a com- 

 plete discussion of the mathematical theory 

 of the moon's motion. This work was never 

 wholly finished but many specific problems in 

 relation to the subject were completed and 

 published from time to time. 



During 1891 and later, Mr. Stockwell pub- 

 ished a series of articles in various astro- 

 nomical magazines on the subject of the 

 ancient eclipses. If the theory of the moon's 

 motion used in such computations is correct, 

 then the predicted time of an eclipse will 

 agree with the historical time, but if there are 

 errors in the theory, the computed time will 

 evidently differ from the historical time. Mr. 

 Stockwell was able to prove that in a large 

 number of cases the historical times agreed 

 very closely with the theoretical times com- 

 puted by his tables, and this proved that his 

 theory of the moon's motion was substantially 

 correct. ISTearly a hundred ancient eclipses 

 were computed and many of the results were 

 published. 



In 1881, after the death of Mr. Case, Case 

 School of Applied Science was opened. It 

 was but natural that the board of trustees 

 should invite Dr. Stockwell (he had received 

 the degree of doctor of philosophy from 

 Western Eeserve College in 1876) to become 

 professor of mathematics and astronomy. He 

 continued to serve in this capacity until 1887, 

 but his tastes were for research and not for 

 teaching and in the latter year he resigned 

 his professorship and through the remainder 

 of his life, devoted himself to that science 

 which he had cultivated for so many years. 



Among the many articles contributed by 

 him to the journals, we find that a large pro- 

 portion have to do with the theory of the 

 moon's motion or the computation of eclipses 

 based upon such theory. There are, however, 

 many articles upon the orbits of comets. 



