Harkness, William

(b. Ecclefechan, Scotland, 17 December 1837; d. Jersey City, New Jersey, 28 February 1903)

astronomy.

Harkness’ family immigrated to America in 1839; his father was both a Presbyterian clergyman and a physician. After graduating from the University of Rochester in 1856, Harkness worked as a journalist. He returned to Rochester, where he received the M.A. in 1861. He next turned to medicine, graduating from the New York Homeopathic Medical College in 1862 and serving briefly as a surgeon in the Civil War. Also in 1862 he joined the U.S. Naval Observatory and in 1863 was commissioned a professor in the U.S. Navy’s Corps of Professors of Mathematics.

Except for service at sea (1865–1866), studying the effects of iron armor on ship compasses and terrestrial magnetism, and a brief period (1866–1867) at the Hydrographic Office, Harkness’ astronomica1 career was spent at the Naval Observatory. In 1869 during a total solar eclipse he discovered the coronal line K 1474. Much of Harkness’ work resulted from observations of the 1874 and 1882 transits of Venus. He headed the expedition to Hobart, Tasmania, to observe the 1874 transit and was in charge of reducing all the American observations. Harkness successfully devised methods and instruments for using the photographic records. Since the German and English parties had not had a similar success with photography, it was used only by the Americans and French in 1882, the latter presumably because of Harkness’ defense of photographic methods. During this period he also published (1879) a theory of the focal curve of achromatic telescopes. After reducing the results of the 1882 observations, he published The Solar Parallax and Its Related Constants (1891), probably his principal theoretical contribution.

Harkness was much involved in the design of the present Naval Observatory building and its original equipment. From 1892 until his retirement in 1899 he was the civilian astronomical director of the observatory, an appointment made in answer to recurring criticism of the navy—s admimistration. On the retirement of Simon Newcomb from the directorship of the Nautical Almanac in 1897, Harkness assumed that position. Fragmentary evidence suggests that Newcomb, who long sought the directorship of the observatory, did not view his successor with enthusiasm. For example, Harkness was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1893 but was never elected to the National Academy of Sciences, an honor within Newcomb’s power of bestowal.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Harkness’ publications are well covered in the Royal Society Catalogue of Scientific Papers, VII, 909; X, 142; and XV, 643–644. The U.S. Naval Observatory records in the U.S. National Archives contain documents on his long service with that institution. An autobiographical account appears in Science, n.s. 17 (17 Apr. 1903), 602–604. There are no known collections of Harkness’ personal papers. The Simon Newcomb Papers in the Library of Congress contain much information on the Naval Observatory during the years when Harkness was on its staff.

Nathan Reingold