90 Scientific Intelligence. 



Obituary. 



Professor Asaph Haxl, the astronomer, died at Annapolis on 

 November 22, at the age of seventy-eight years. 



Prof. Hall's first ancestor of the family name in this country, 

 John Hall, landed in Massachusetts about 1630 and afterwards 

 moved to Connecticut, making his home in the town of Walling- 

 ford. Thence Prof. Hall's grandfather, Asaph Hall, moved to 

 Goshen, Litchfield County, about 1755. He was with Ethan Allen 

 at the capture of Ticonderoga, and afterwards became a captain. 

 Prof. Hall's father was also named Asaph Hall. The professor 

 was born in Goshen, Oct. 15, 1829. His mother was a Palmer, 

 descended from the Palmers of Stonington. His father manufac- 

 tured clocks at Hart Hollow in Goshen and traveled with wagon 

 and team selling them through the South. In one of these trips 

 he died in Georgia, leaving scanty means to his widow. In con- 

 sequence young Hall had to be removed from school and appren- 

 ticed to a carpenter. But he seems to have early formed the 

 resolution of devoting himself to a scientific career. The nar- 

 rowness of his circumstances, however, prevented any move in 

 this direction until he had reached the age of 25 years, when, 

 having learned the existence of a sort of communistic college at 

 McGrawville, Cortland County, N. Y., where the students paid 

 for their board and tuition by manual labor, and the higher classes 

 lent a helping hand in teaching the lower, he repaired thither. 

 Here, in a couple of years, although the educational appliances 

 must have been meager, he succeeded in acquiring a fair acquain- 

 tance with French, German, Latin, and the elements of mathema- 

 tics. Here, too, he met Miss Angeline Stickney, who was on a 

 quest similar to his. After her graduation they were married 

 and went to Ann Arbor, Mich., where, for a little time, Prof. 

 Hall enjoyed the instruction of Prof. Franz Brtlnnow. Then 

 they taught school at Shalersville, Ohio. The next step was to 

 Cambridge, Mass., to Harvard College Observatory. This was 

 in the summer of 1857. Prof. W. C. Bond set him to work 

 reducing a large mass of moon-culminations which the Bonds 

 had accumulated as a contribution to the knowledge of the dif- 

 ference of longitude between Europe and America. Prof. Hall's 

 pay was exceedingly scanty, and the utmost economy was neces- 

 sary to make both ends meet. Foi-tunately, Congress in 1862 

 authorized four aidships for the Naval Observatory. For one of 

 these Prof. Hall applied and obtained the appointment. 



This proved to be the turning point in Prof. Hall's career. He 

 was soon made Professor of Mathematics in the Navy, and his 

 skill and adroitness in the management of all scientific matters, 

 coming under his hand, won for him universal regard, especially 

 that of Joseph Henry, so that, in 1875, he was elected into the 

 National Academy of Sciences. In 1877 occurred a favorable 

 opposition of Mars, and with the larger equatorial of the Naval 

 Observatory, of which he was then in charge, he subjected the 

 planet and its vicinity to rigid scrutiny, with the shining success 



