Obituary. 91 



of the discovery of the satellites Deimos and Phobos. Although 

 some may say this was only good luck, Prof. Hall deserved all the 

 praise accorded him by his extreme industry in accumulating the 

 measures serving to determine the orbits of these bodies. Prof. 

 Hall undertook long journeys for the sake of observing impor- 

 tant phenomena ; the transits of Venus were observed at Vladi- 

 vostok and San Antonio ; solar eclipses at Plover Bay, in Sicily 

 and Colorado. In 1891 he was retired. In 1896 he received an 

 invitation to give instruction in celestial mechanics at Harvard 

 University, which he accepted, and performed the duty for five 

 years. His lectures were addressed to undergraduates as an elec- 

 tive course ; he was under the necessity of accommodating his 

 teaching to the capacity of his pupils, who seldom exceeded 

 seven. The subject was treated on the line of Gauss' Theoria 

 Motus. In 1901 he thought himself warranted in retiring to his 

 native town, Goshen, in quietness, retaining, however, his innate 

 propensity for investigating all matters that interested him. This 

 he kept up till within about ten months of his decease, when, the 

 physician being called in, he was pronounced to be suffering from 

 heart trouble, and absolute quiet was prescribed. He passed 

 away on November 22, 1907, at the house of his son in Annapo- 

 lis, Md., whither he had gone to escape the rigors of the Goshen 

 winter. 



With his fine temperament for social intercourse he had no dif- 

 ficulty in being popular wherever he went. In this connection I 

 can only think of the exclamation of one of the watchmen at the 

 Observatory just after he had passed, " What a nice man he is !" 



G. w. HILL. 



Dr. Bernard J. Harrington, Professor of Chemistry and 

 Mineralogy in McGill University, Montreal, died on November 29 

 at the age of fifty-nine years. In him Canada loses not only a well 

 known chemist and mineralogist, but one who had endeared him- 

 self to a large circle of friends and acquaintances by his sterling 

 worth of character and charming pei*sonality, His death took 

 place at his home in Montreal, after a long illness of some fifteen 

 months' duration. 



Dr. Harrington was born at St. Andrews, P. Q., on August 5th, 

 1848. Not being very strong as a boy, his early education was 

 obtained chiefly from private tutors. He then entered McGill 

 University, where he graduated with honors in natural science 

 and taking the Logan medal in geology. He then proceeded to 

 the degree of Master of Arts in this University and subsequently 

 continued his studies in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale 

 University, from which in 1871 he obtained the degree of Doctor 

 of Philosophy, taking the prize in mineralogy. At Yale he was 

 a classmate of Professor H. S. Williams of Cornell, these two 

 gentlemen being the first candidates to receive the degree of 

 Doctor of Philosophy at the School in question. 



His first field work was carried out in Prince Edward's Island, 

 where he assisted Sir William Dawson in the preparation of a 



