Maria Mitchell (1818-89), daughter of William Mitchell
(1791-1868), also an astronomer, became Professor of Astronomy in
Vassar College, LL.D. of Columbia University (1887), and was the first
woman elected to the American Academy of Sciences. Lewis Morris
Rutherfurd (1816-92), one of the most distinguished astronomers on the
American Continent, obtained important results in astronomical
photography, and by means of a ruling engine, designed by him in 1870,
constructed the finest diffraction-gratings which had, up to that
time, been made, was of Scottish ancestry. George Davidson
(1825-1911), born in England of Scottish parentage, geodetist and
astronomer, one of the founders of the Geographical Society of the
Pacific, Regent of the University of California, was retired after
fifty years' active field service of incalculable value to the cause
of science. William Harkness (1837-1903), born in Ecclefechan,
Dumfriesshire, was executive officer of the Transit of Venus
Commission (1882). The task of reducing the observations and the
hundreds of photographs was successfully undertaken by him although
declared impossible by eminent British and German astronomers. He was
later Astronomical Director of the Naval Observatory and in 1897 made
head of the Nautical Almanac. Williamina (Mina) Paton Fleming
(1857-1911), born in Dundee, discovered many new stars and wrote much
of permanent value on her subject. William Wallace Campbell (b. 1862),
of Scottish ancestry, has been Director of Lick Observatory since
1901, and has written much on astronomy.
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