| found: 4 books |
First edition.
A wonderful association copy from the library of the Scottish-born American astronomer William Harkness, with his name and the date "April 26th, 1858" signed in pencil on the front pastedown. 1858 was the year he graduated from the University of Rochester.
The Scottish-born American astronomer William Harkness (1837-1903) studied at LaFayette College and the University of Rochester before pursuing further studies in medicine in New York City. A surgeon in the Union armies during the Civil War, he also served as an aid in astronomy at the United States Naval Observatory and subsequently on the USS Monadnock. He discovered the coronal line K1474 while observing the August 1869 solar eclipse. As a member of the Transit of Venus Commission, he was in charge of the group at Hobart, Tasmania in 1879 and subsequently of that in Washington in 1882. Harkness contributed to the construction and improvement of telescopes and invented several astronomical instruments, including the spherometer caliper. He went on to serve as astronomical director of the Naval Observatory from 1894 through 1899 and director of the Nautical Almanac from 1897 through 99 and was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His published works include "The Solar Parallax and its Related Constants" (1891). Fair .
Blue Mountain Books & Manuscripts, Ltd.Professional seller Blue Mountain Books & Manuscripts, Ltd.Professional sellerMost noteworthy is the first publication of Maria Mitchell's essay "On Jupiter and its Satellites", illustrated with a plate (volume I, pages 393-395).
The first American scientist to discover a comet, Maria Mitchell (1818-1889) was the first female astronomer in the United States. Working as the librarian of the Nantuckett Atheneum, Maria Mitchell read through the day and spent her nights with her father at the observatory he built atop the Pacific Bank. Her discovery in 1847 of the comet which came to be named "Miss Mitchell's Comet" brought her international acclaim. She was awarded a gold medal by King Frederick of Denmark and elected as the first woman to join the American Academy of Arts and Sciences the following year. Mitchell traveled throughout Europe after leaving the Atheneum in 1856, meeting with astronomers the world over. She became involved and active in the anti-slavery movement and the suffrage movement and was subsequently instrumental in the formation of the American Association for the Advancement of Women. After the Civil War, Mitchell was recruited to join the faculty at Vassar College where, with a 12 inch telescope (then the third largest in the US), she specialized in studying the surfaces of Jupiter and Saturn. She made waves by encouraging her female students to come out at night for classes and celestial observations and brought in noted feminists, including Julia Ward Howe, to speak on political issues. Continuously championing the advancement of women, she gave an important speech entitled "The Need for Women in Science" during the 1876 centennial. Mitchell was one of only 3 women to be elected to the Hall of Fame of Great Americans in 1905. She was also inducted into the National Woman's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. A lunar crater on the moon was named in her honor.
Also worth noting is Professor L. Respighi's essay "On the Solar Protuberances", illustrated with a folding plate (volume I, pages 283-287).
The Italian astronomer Lorenzo Respighi (1824-1889) was appointed appointed professor of mechanics and hydraulics at the University of Bologna. In that context, his first works were mathematical and included a well-known memoir on the principles of differential calculus. Captivated by astronomy, he succeeded Calandrelli as director of the astronomical observatory at the University of Bologna in 1855. After making observations on comets, Respighi became director of the Campidoglio observatory in Rome where he devoted his attention to studying solar phenomena. His studies of the spectra of sunspots were particularly important as he observed the splitting of the absorption lines, later described by Hale as the result of the Zeeman effect.
Henry James Clark's essay "The American Spongilla, a Craspedote, Flagellate Infusorian", illustrated with a plate, is here published on pages 426 through 436 of volume II.
The American naturalist Henry James Clark (1826-1873) was a pupil of Asa Gray at the Cambridge botanical garden. He became an assistant to Louis Agassiz after graduating from Harvard and was professor of Zoology and of Natural History at numerous colleges and universities. From 1872 until his death in 1873, Clark was Professor of Veterinary Science at the Massachusetts Agricultural College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He contributed to a number of periodicals and authored "Mind in Nature" (1863) and "Mode of Development of Animals" (1865). Good .
Blue Mountain Books & Manuscripts, Ltd.Professional seller
Illustrated history of the astronomical observatory at Jaipur, India, including a brief life of its founder Sawai Jai Singh, eighteenth-century king, soldier and scientist. Fine .
Blue Mountain Books & Manuscripts, Ltd.Professional seller| Pages: 1 |