SIMON NEWCOMB

ASTRONOMER

1835-1909

BY MARCUS BENJAMIN

"To him the wandering stars revealed
The secrets in their cradle sealed;
The far-off, frozen sphere that swings
Through ether, zoned with lucid rings;
The orb that rolls in dim eclipse

Wide wheeling, round its long ellipse,-
His name Urania writes with these,
And stamps it on her Pleiades."

THESE lines written by Oliver Wendell Holmes on one of Harvard's most eminent men of science apply with even greater force to Simon Newcomb, who by common consent had achieved the reputation of being the foremost astronomer of his time and easily succeeded to the honor of being the world's Nestor of Science on the death of Lord Kelvin. Sir Robert S. Ball, formerly Astronomer Royal of Ireland and now Director of the Astronomical Observatory in Cambridge, England, wrote of him: "Science has sustained one of the most severe blows of recent years. America has lost her most eminent man of science, and not since the death of Adams has the world been deprived of so illustrious an investigator in theoretical astronomy." He was, says the same writer, "the most conspicuous figure among the brilliant band of contemporory American astronomers."

Simon Newcomb was the sixth in descent from Simon Newcomb who was born in Massachusetts, in 1666, and died in Lebanon,

Connecticut, in 1745. His paternal ancestors moved to Canada in 1761, and in Wallace, Nova Scotia, on March 12, 1835, the famous astronomer was born. His father was John B. Newcomb, who followed the precarious occupation of a country school-teacher, seldom remaining in the same place for more than one or two years, and he is described by his son as being "the most rational and dispassionate of men." From his Reminiscences we learn that of his father's family none acquired "great wealth," held "a high official position," or did "anything to make his name live in history." Simon Newcomb's mother was Emily Prince, a descendant of a long-lived New England family, that was widely connected, and she included among her ancestors Elder William Brewster, who came over in the Mayflower.

The story of the courtship of these two is of special interest. In his search for her whom he believed would make him a fitting wife, John B. Newcomb had gone on a visit to Moncton, New Brunswick, and there attracted by the strains of music from a church, he entered the building and found a religious meeting in progress. His eye was at once arrested by the face and head of a young woman playing on a melodeon, who was leading the singing. He sat in such a position that he could carefully scan her face and movements. As he continued this study the conviction grew upon him that here was the object of his search. He soon made her acquaintance, paid her his addresses, and became her accepted suitor. He was fond of astronomy, and during the months of his courtship one of his favorite occupations was to take her out of an evening and show her the constellations. It is even said that among the day-dreams in which they indulged, one was that their first-born might be an astronomer.

Of his mother, Newcomb wrote: "She was the most profoundly and sincerely religious woman with whom I was ever acquainted, and my father always entertained and expressed the highest admiration for her mental gifts, to which he attributed whatever talents his children might have possessed." Her strength was unequal to her surroundings, and she died at the early age of thirty-seven years.

During his boyhood days, owing to the nature of his father's vocation, the movings of the family were frequent, although until he was four years of age Simon lived in the home of his paternal grandfather, about two miles from the village of Wallace. Here he was taught the alphabet by his aunts and he says, himself: "I was reading the Bible in class and beginning geography when I was six." In greater detail perhaps, he writes:

"I began to study arithmetic when I was five years old, and when six, I am told, I was very fond of doing sums. At twelve I was studying algebra, and about that time I began to teach. I remember that I was thirteen when I first took up Euclid. There was a copy of it among my father's works."

After the boy had grown to manhood his father wrote for him an account of his early life from which the following extract is taken:

"At fifteen you studied Euclid, and were enraptured with it. It is a little singular that all this time you never showed any selfesteem; or spoke of getting into employment at some future day, among the learned. The pleasure of intellectual exercise in demonstrating or analyzing a geometrical problem, or solving an algebraic equation, seemed to be your only object. Your almost intuitive knowledge of geography, navigation, and nautical matters in general caused me to think most ardently of writing to the Admiral at Halifax, to know if he would give you a place among the midshipmen of the navy; but my hope of seeing you a leading lawyer, and finally a judge on the bench, together with the possibility that your mother would not consent, and the possibility that you would not wish to go, deterred me."

Newcomb in his Reminiscences of this period writes:

"Among the books which profoundly influenced my mode of life and thought during the period embraced in the foregoing extracts were Fowler's Phrenology and Combe's Constitution of Man. It may appear strange to the reader if a system so completely exploded as that of phrenology should have any value as a mental discipline. Its real value consisted, not in what it taught about the position of the 'organs,' but in presenting a study of human nature, which, if not scientific in form, was truly so in

spirit. I acquired the habit of looking on the characters and capabilities of men as the result of their organism."

Referring to the small collection of books in the possession of his paternal grandfather he says: "Among those purely literary were several volumes of the Spectator and Roderick Random. Of the former I read a good deal. Three mathematical books were in the collection, Hammond's Algebra, Simpson's Euclid, and Moore's Navigator." These works were literally absorbed by him, and he also mentions Mrs. Marcet's Conversations on Natural Philosophy and Lardner's Popular Lectures on Science and Art, as books that greatly interested him during this period of his youth.

His desire for learning had exhausted the slender resources of his paternal home and so at the age of sixteen, while on a visit to his grandparents, in Moncton, he went to study with one Doctor Foshay, who lived in the village of Salisbury, fifteen miles on the road to St. John. An agreement was made with the physician which read as follows:

"S. N. to live with the doctor, rendering him all the assistance in his power in preparing medicines, attending to business, and doing generally whatever might be required of him in the way of help. The Doctor, on his part, to supply S. N.'s bodily needs in food and clothing, and teach him medical botany and the botanic system of medicine. The contract to terminate when the other party should attain the age of twenty-one."

This contract so gladly made soon became unsatisfactory and young Newcomb found himself

"Physician, apothecary, chemist and druggist,

Girl about house and boy in the barn."

With greater exactness he says: "I cared for the horse, cut wood for the fire, searched field and forest for medicinal herbs, ordered other medicines from a druggist in St. John, kept the doctor's accounts, made his pills, and mixed his powders."

This unfortunately left little time for reading and study and soon he began to realize that his growing years were being wasted.