Abstract
AT the time when the attention of astronomers is again directed to the return of the nucleus of the November meteors, the sad intelligence reaches us of the death of Prof. Newton, of Yale College, whose reputation is largely connected with the history of this shower, and who, perhaps more than any other, has advanced the position of meteoric astronomy to that it now holds. He thus rendered a great service to astronomy, and had he no other claims to remembrance this would ensure a grateful recollection. Prior to his historical researches the observation of meteors possessed but a languid and feeble interest, lacking that coherence and purpose which method, founded on a suggestive hypothesis, alone can give. The collection and discussion of the original accounts of thirteen meteoric displays, all of a similar description, and distributed over a period of more than nine hundred years, demonstrated the permanent character of the phenomenon, rendered prediction possible, and invited hopeful inquiry. The fact that he left the inquiry incomplete scarcely diminishes the extent of his service, since he showed that the problem came within the range of celestial dynamics, and he at once indicated the method and supplied the means which it was certain would be effective in the hands of a master of profound and subtle analysis. It is not necessary to pursue the subject further, or to more than mention the interest subsequently added to meteoric inquiry by the discovery of Schiaparelli and others working in this fruitful field; the impulse had been given, and the subject of shooting-stars became vividly and permanently a subject of astronomical notice.
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P., W. Professor Hubert A. Newton. Nature 54, 394 (1896). https://doi.org/10.1038/054394a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/054394a0