Dr. Edmund Halley, a name well known in the annals of astronomy, was
the only son of a soap-boiler in London, and was born in 1656. He
received the rudiments of his education at St. Paul’s School in his
native city; and in his seventeenth year, became a commoner in Queen’s
College, Oxford. At first he applied himself to the study of the
languages and sciences, but at length gave himself wholly up to that
of astronomy; and before he had attained his nineteenth year,
published a method of finding the aphelia and eccentricity of planets,
which supplied a defect in the Keplerian theory of planetary notions.
By some observations on a spot on the sun’s disk in the summer of
1676, he established the certainty of the motion of that body round
its own axis; and in the same year fixed the longitude of the Cape of
Good Hope, by his observations of the occultation of Mars by the Moon.
Immediately after, he went to St Helena, where he staid till 1678,
completing a catalogue of the fixed stars of the southern hemisphere,
which was published in the following year, and gained for its author
the appellation of the ‘Southern Tycho.’ In 1679 he was called upon to
settle a dispute between the English philosopher Hooke and the
celebrated Hevelius, respecting the use of optical instruments in
astronomy, and for this purpose went to Dantzic, where with honorable
impartiality, he decided against his own countryman. In 1680 he made
the tour of Europe, making the acquaintance of Cassini at Paris, and
completing his observations from the Royal Observatory of France on
the comet which now bears his name. After spending the greater part of
1681 in Italy, he returned to England, and settled at Islington, where
he fitted up an observatory for his astronomical researches.
In 1683 he published his Theory of the Variation of the Magnetical
Compass, in which he endeavored to account for the phenomenon, by the
supposition of the whole globe being one great magnet, having four
circulating magnetical poles or points of attraction. His theory,
though unsatisfactory, is ingenious. The doctrines of Kepler relative
to the motions of the planets next engaged his attention; and finding
himself disappointed in his endeavors to obtain information on the
subject from Hooke and Sir Christopher Wren, he went to Cambridge,
where Newton, then mathematical professor, satisfied his inquiries. In
1691 he was candidate for the Savilian professorship of astronomy at
Oxford――a chair which he would have obtained, had he not refused to
profess his thorough belief in all the doctrines of the Christian
religion, as taught by the church of England. For the purpose of
making further observations relative to the variation of the compass,
he set sail on a voyage in 1699 (having obtained the command of a
vessel from King William, who was anxious to promote the cause of
geographical and astronomical science); and after traversing both
hemispheres, and making important observations at numerous stations,
he returned to England in September 1700. As the result of his
researches, he published a general chart, showing at one view the
variation of the compass in all those seas where the English
navigators were acquainted; and thus laid the foundation of that
department of science which has since received the attention of the
greatest philosophers. His next employment, under the patronage of the
king, was to observe the tides in the English Channel, with the
latitudes and longitudes of the principle headlands; observations
which were shortly after published in a large map of the Channel. In
1703, he was engaged by the emperor of Germany to survey the coast of
Delmatia; and returning in November of that year to England, he was
elected Savilian professor of geometry on the death of Dr. Wallis, and
was also honored with the diploma of LL.D.; a title somewhat more in
consonance with his pursuits than that of ‘Captain,’ by which he had
been styled from the time of his appointment to the command of the
surveying vessel furnished him by King William. Dr. Halley now gave
his mind more entirely to mathematics, translating into Latin from the
Arabic and Greek several treatises, which he afterwards published with
supplementary matter, such as those of Appolonius and Serenus.
In 1719 he received the appointment of astronomer-royal at Greenwich,
where he afterwards chiefly resided, devoting his time to completing
the theory of the motion of the moon, which notwithstanding his age,
he pursued with enthusiastic ardor. In 1721 he began his observations,
and for the space of eighteen years, scarcely ever missed taking a
meridian view of the moon when the weather was favorable. He died at
Greenwich in 1742, at the advanced age of eighty-six, having spent one
of the most active and useful lives on record. His honors and titles
were numerous, but no more than his multifarious occupations and
achievements entitled him to. In all he exhibited the same promptness
of resolve and incessant assiduity, willing to assist or be assisted;
and never deigning it beneath him to confess when ignorant, nor to
receive information from any quarter, however humble. Whether as
Captain Halley, as secretary to the Royal Society, consulting engineer
to the emperor of Germany, or astronomer-royal, he was the same
ardent, prompt, and indefatigable laborer. His publications and papers
were numerous; he gave important assistance to Dr. D. Gregory in the
preparation of the conic sections of Appolonius; and to Halley are we
also indebted for the publication of several of the works of Sir Isaac
Newton, who had a particular friendship for him, and to whom he
frequently communicated his discoveries.