GREAT IRISH SCIENTIST

New Zealand Tablet, 20 May 1915, Page 39

GREAT IRISH SCIENTIST

•‘. One of the most eminent scientists of the last century was the distinguished Irishman, William Parsons, third Earl of Ross, and ancestor of his \ present-day namesake, whose labors in the development of turbine engines are so well known. He was educated at Dublin and Oxford Universities, where he won high honors in mathematics and the higher sciences. He represented King's County in Parliament from 1821 to 1834, and succeeded his father in the earldom in 1841, In 1845 he was elected a representative peer of Ireland. He filled the distinguished post of Chancellor of the University of Dublin for many years. Although a strong Conservative, , he in later life took little.part in politics, and. his name was unheard in the debates during the whole of the stirring period that embraced the Catholic Emancipation and Reform movements. The charms of science gradually weaned him from all pursuits that interfered with its cultivation. During the discussion of the Reform Bill he was occupied with the construction of his first great telescope, the speculum of which had a diameter of three feet, being larger than that of any previous instrument. Its success was so complete that he was emboldened to construct one with a speculum double the diameter. Every step in the process, necessitating a combination of scientific knowledge and mechanical skill, had to be pioneered by experiments, and success was won at the cost of many and harassing failures. The gigantic speculum was at length turned out without a warp or flaw. It was mounted on a telescope fifty-two feet in length. The machinery required to move such a ponderous instrument taxed all Lord Ross’s mechanical genius. The task was completed in 1845, after seventeen years’ labor, at an outlay of upwards of £20,000. It was one of the finest instruments in the world until the famous American telescope was constructed at the Lick Observatory in San Francisco. Lord Ross was president of the Royal Society, and served on a number of Royal Commissions relating to literature, education, and science. lie died on the 31st of October, 1867, at the age of sixty-seven.