Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/30

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AIRY.
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Greeks," of which an analysis was also given in Bohn's edition of Xenophon's "Anabasis," were the result of the two journeys, extending over a period of seven years. Mr. Ainsworth has edited "Claims of the Oriental Christians," "Lares and Penates; or, Cilicia and its Governors," "The Euphrates Valley Route to India," "On an Indo-European Telegraph by the Valley of the Tigris" (since carried out by the Turkish Government), "All Round the World," "The Illustrated Universal Gazetteer," &c. Mr. Ainsworth is a member of many foreign societies. He was one of the founders of the "West London Hospital," of which he is at present the Treasurer and one of the Trustees.


AIRY, Sir George Biddell, K.C.B., F.R.S., the late Astronomer Royal, a native of Alnwick, Northumberland, born June 27, 1801, was educated at private schools at Hereford and Colchester, and at the Colchester Grammar School, whence he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1819. In 1822 he was elected Scholar, and in 1824 Fellow, of Trinity, having graduated B.A. in the previous year, when he came out senior wrangler. In 1826 he took his degree of M.A., and was elected Lucasian Professor. This office, rendered illustrious by having been filled by Barrow and Newton, had become a sinecure. No sooner was Professor Airy elected, than he resolved to turn it to account, and to deliver public lectures on Experimental Philosophy. He commenced this good work in 1827, and continued it to 1836, the series being known as the first in which the Undulatory Theory of Light was efficiently illustrated. In 1828 he was elected to the Plumian Professorship, and in that capacity was intrusted with the entire management of the Cambridge Observatory. On taking charge of this post he commenced a course of observations, and introduced improvements in the form of the calculation and publication of the observations, which have served as a pattern at Greenwich and other observatories. Professor Airy also superintended the mounting of the Equatorial, the Mural Circle, and the Northumberland Telescope (the last entirely from his own plans), at the Cambridge Observatory. When the question of admission of Dissenters to Academical Degrees was first raised about 1831, Mr. Airy was one of the sixty-three Members of the Senate who supported it. In 1835 he succeeded Mr. Pond as Astronomer Royal. In this capacity he distinguished himself by giving greater regularity to the proceedings in the Observatory at Greenwich, by maintaining the general outline of the plan which its essential character and its historical associations have imposed upon that institution, while he introduced new instruments and new modes of calculation and publication, by which the value of the Observatory to science is much increased. It is not our province to describe in detail the Transit Circle, the Altazimuth, the Reflex Zenith Tube, the Water-Telescope, and the large first-class Equatorial, erected from Sir G. B. Airy's plans, and under his superintendence. It is sufficient to say that the latter was, at the date of its erection, the most magnificent instrument of its kind in the world; though now surpassed in size by later instruments. A double-image micrometer, invented by him, has been found very valuable, for its accuracy and convenience. Sir G. B. Airy, who computed, edited, and published the observations of Groombridge, Catton, and Fallows, 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.