SKETCH OF JOSEPH LOVERING. 693 



of Grote, which. Challis quotes in favor of his own : ' Its fruit- 

 fulness is its correctibility.' Instead of being disheartened by 

 difficulties, the true man of science will congratulate himself in 

 the words of Vauvenargues, that he lives in a world fertile in 

 obstacles. Immortality would be no boon if there were not 

 something left to discover as well as to love ! " 



The Observatory op Harvard University. — M. W. C. 

 Bond started a private observatory at his house in Dorchester, 

 where he observed eclipses and occultations, as far back as 1820. 

 In 1840 he was induced by President Quincy to remove to Cam- 

 bridge with his transit-instrument and other appointments, which 

 were supplemented by some telescopes, sextants, etc., belonging to 

 the college. Prof. Lovering was associated with him in the man- 

 agement of this primitive observatory. Its location was in a pri- 

 vate house belonging to the college, in which Mr. Bond and Prof. 

 Lovering took up their residence. Humboldt had induced the 

 Royal Society of London to co-operate in making simultaneous 

 observations on the elements of terrestrial magnetism in Great 

 Britain and its colonies. The only stations on this Western Con- 

 tinent were at Toronto, Canada, and in Philadelphia and Cam- 

 bridge. Prof. Bache, afterward Chief of the United States Coast 

 Survey, conducted the observations in Philadelphia. Mr. Bond 

 and Prof. Lovering had charge of the observations in Cambridge. 

 These observations were to be made simultaneously all over the 

 earth, and with instruments constructed according to the Gauss 

 pattern. Cambridge was supplied with a set of these instru- 

 ments by the generosity of the American Academy of Arts and 

 Sciences. 



As, on one day of each month, observations were to be made 

 every five minutes on three different instruments, day and night, 

 for the purpose of obtaining the curves of diurnal variation in the 

 magnetic elements, the assistance of a few competent and zealous 

 undergraduates was freely offered and gladly accepted. Of these, 

 Thomas Hill, afterward President of Harvard College, and Ben- 

 jamin A. Gould, now the distinguished astronomer, deserve spe- 

 cial mention. Prof. Benjamin Peirce rendered valuable service, 

 not only by assisting in the observations on the special days of 

 each month, but in applying the Gauss theory to the calculation 

 of the magnetic elements for Cambridge. Mr. Hill was employed 

 in reducing the weekly means to empirical formulae by the method 

 of Prof. Peirce. 



Profs. Peirce and Lovering were co-editors of the "Mathe- 

 matical Miscellany," published at Cambridge, and devoted to pure 

 and applied mathematics. The essays contributed by Prof. Lov- 

 ering are enumerated in the annexed catalogue of his publica- 

 tions. A gentleman who has achieved a world-wide reputation in 



