Prqfessar Elias Loomis, 451 



Lea] meteorology. He felt most deeply the backward steps 

 taken by the United States Signal Service when mountain 

 observations and the publication of the International Bulletin 



were discontinued. "The National Academy of Sciences," 

 he said, "ought at once to take up the subject and use all its 

 influence t«» secure the restoration of these two services." 



Professor Loomis at various times studied certain other 

 questions in physics and astronomy that were more or less 

 allied with the subjects to which he gave the principal 

 part <>f his time, and he published the results of his studies. 

 He made a series of experiments on currents of electricity 

 generated by a plate of zinc buried in the earth. He exam- 

 ined the electrical phenomena in certain houses in New York ; 

 the curious phenomena of optical moving figures ; the vibra- 

 tions sent out from waterfalls as the water flows over certain 

 dams: the orbits of the satellites of Uranus; the temperature 

 <»f the planets ; the variations of light of the stars tj Argus and 

 Algol ; and the comet of 1861. 



The subject of family Genealogy has a peculiar fascination 

 to many minds. It would be an interesting study to determine 

 practically by a collection of facts what are the elements in 

 a man's character which lead him to engage in this peculiar 

 study. Certain it is that men of most diverse disposition are 

 led into it. I should not have thought it likely that Professor 

 Loomis would have taken up the subject very seriously. 

 Others have expressed to me the same thought, and he himself 

 Bays that he did not think it strange that others should be 

 surprised at his devoting so much time to this subject, for he 

 was surprised at it himself. He became interested in the sub- 

 ject early in life, and that interest remained unbroken to his 

 last days. For near forty years before his first publication 

 he collected from time to time materials for a list of the 

 descendants of his ancestor, Joseph Loomis, who came from 

 Braintree, England, in the year 1638, and settled in Windsor, 

 Connecticut, in 1639. In each of his four visits to Europe he 

 extended his inquiries to his ancestor's earlier history in 

 England. The materials thus collected were put in type in 

 1^7<». He published a list containing 4,340 descendants of 



