he son of the village schoolmaster, he lived to
become one of the eight foreign associates of the Institute of France,
the first native American since Franklin to be so honored; to win the
Huygens medal, given once in twenty years to the astronomer who had done
the greatest service to the science in that period, and to receive the
highest degree from practically every American college.

In his autobiography he tells how, at the age of five, he began to study
arithmetic, at twelve algebra, and at thirteen Euclid. At the age of
eighteen, planning to make his way to the United States, he set out on
foot, taught school for a year or so, and then attracted the attention
of Prof. Joseph Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, by sending him a
problem in algebra. The unusual aptitude for mathematics which the boy
possessed so impressed Prof. Henry, that he set him to work as a
computer on the Nautical Almanac; but he was soon attracted to "exact,"
or mathematical astronomy, which became his life work. Some idea of its
importance may be gained when it is stated that every astronomer in the
world to-day uses his determinations of the movements of the planets
and the moon; every skipper in the world guides his ship by tables which
Newcomb devised; and every eclipse is computed according to his tables.
He supervised the construction and mounting of the equatorial telescope
in the naval observatory at Washington, the Lick telescope, and Russia
applied to him, in 1873, for aid in placing her great telescope.

A man of humor, sympathy and anecdote, he found, in the fall of 1908,
that he was suffering from cancer, and hastened the work on the moon,
which was to be his masterpiece. Ten months later, he was told that his
course was nearly run--and his great work was still incomplete.

"Take me to Washington," he said, "I must work while there is time."

And there, lying in agony on his bed, for three weeks he dictated
steadily to stenographers on a subject which required the utmost
concentration. His indomitable will alone supported him, and a week
after the last word had been written, came the end. Verily, there was a
man!

The last of the great American astronomers whom we shall mention here is
Edward Charles Pickering, whose name is so closely connected with the
development of the great observatory at Harvard. Born at Boston, and
educated at the Lawrence Scientific School, his first work was in the
field of physics, but in 1876, h