DEATH OF SIR G. AIRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8767, 6 January 1892, Page 5

DEATH OF SIR G. AIRY.

Press Association.— Telegraphs— London, January 5. The death is announced of Sir George Airy, the astronomer. Sir George Biddell Airy, K.C.'B., the late Astronomer Royal, was a native of Alnwick, Northumberland, and was born in 1801, consequently was 90 years of age. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and ia 1824 came out Senior Wrangler. In 1826 he was elected Lucasian professor, and from 1827 to 1836 delivered public lectures on Experimental Philosophy, the series being known as the first in which the undulating theory of light was efficiently illustrated. In 1828 he was elected So the Plumian professorship, and entrusted with the management or! the Cambridge Observatory, and in 1835 he succeeded Mr. Pond as Astronomer Royal. In this capacity he distinguished himself by giving greater i regularity to the proceedings in the Observatory at Greenwich, and reduced the Greenwich observations of planets and observations of the moon from 1750 down to the present time, has also thrown much light on ancient chronology by computing several of the most important eclipses of former ages. He was chairman of the commission appointed to consider the general question of standards, after the great fire which destroyed the former national standards in the Houses of Parliament in 1834, and advocated the establishment of a decimal coinage, and acting as one of the three Royal Commissioners on railway gauges recommended the .narrow as opposed to the broad gauee on the railways. In 1874 he was entrusted with • the entire direction of the British portion of the enterprise for observing the transit of Venus made recently. He has suggested a new method of treating the Lunar theory, and added to the original course of labours at the Royal Observatory a complete system of magnetic, meteorological, photoheliographic, and spectroscopic observations. He has published a number of scientific works, and received honourable recognition from various learned and scientific societies. He was nominated a Companion (Civil) of the Bath in 1871, and created a Knight Commander in the following year. Ac the close of 1873 he resigned the position of President of the Royal Society, and was honoured by admission to the freedom of the City of London in 1875. On his resignation of the post of Astronomer Royal in 1881, the Treasury awarded him a pension of £1100 per annum, in consideration i of his long and valuable services. ~-— ——■