reach, at more than one of its points. His fame was of the far-reaching
kind,--penetrating to remote regions, while that of some others has only
created a noisy disturbance within a narrow radius.

Best and most widely known as an astronomer, his achievements in that
science were not suited for sensational exploitation. He discovered no
apple-orchards on the moon, neither did he dispute regarding the railways
on the planet Venus. His aim was to make still more exact our knowledge of
the motions of the bodies constituting what we call the solar system, and
his labors toward this end, begun more than thirty years ago, he continued
almost until the day of his death. Conscious that his span of life was
measured by months and in the grip of what he knew to be a fatal disease,
he yet exerted himself with all his remaining energy to complete his
monumental work on the motion of the moon, and succeeded in bringing it to
an end before the final summons came. His last days thus had in them a
cast of the heroic, not less than if, as the commander of a torpedoed
battleship, he had gone down with her, or than if he had fallen charging
at the head of a forlorn hope. It is pleasant to think that such a man was
laid to rest with military honors. The accident that he was a retired
professor in the United States Navy may have been the immediate cause of
this, but its appropriateness lies deeper.

Newcomb saw the light not under the Stars and Stripes, but in Nova Scotia,
where he was born, at the town of Wallace on March 12, 1835. His father, a
teacher, was of American descent, his ancestors having settled in Canada
in 1761. After studying with his father and teaching for some little time
in his native province he came to the United States while yet a boy of
eighteen, and while teaching in Maryland in 1854-'56 was so fortunate as
to attract, by his mathematical ability, the attention of two eminent
American scientific men, Joseph Henry and Julius Hilgard, who secured him