Philosophical Transactions (Abridgement Series)/Volume 2/page 326 bio

Phil Trans. (Abridgement Series, 1809) vol.2 (for 1672-83), pp.326-328:
(Biographical footnote, pp.326-328 in vol.2, accompanying the abridgement of a paper by Edmund Halley.)

Dr. Edmund Halley, a celebrated mathematician and astronomer, as well as one of the most eminent and useful members of the Royal Society, was born in London, An. 1656, and educated at St. Paul's School there; from whence he was sent 1673 to Queen's College, Oxford, where he chiefly applied himself to mathematics and astronomy, in which he soon distinguished himself in a remarkable manner, being only in his 19th year when he produced the above paper in the Philosophical Transactions, on the aphelia and eccentricity of the planets.

He made a great number of accurate observations in astronomy; and the forming in that way an entire new catalogue of all the stars was a favourite object; but finding that project already occupied by Hevelius and Flamsteed, he formed the design of completing their scheme, by the addition of the stars about the south pole, which could not be seen by those astronomers in the latitude of Dantzic or Greenwich. For this purpose, he left the university before he had taken any degree, and sailed for the island of St. Helena in 1676, when he was only 20 years of age. Here, with great diligence he soon completed his catalogue of those stars, with which he returned to England the latter end of l678, when the Royal Society immediately elected him one of their members, and the king (Charles 2d) gave him a mandamus to the university of Oxford, for the degree of A.M.

In 1679 he went to Dantzic, at the request of the Royal Society to endeavour to adjust a dispute between M. Hevelius and Mr. Hook, concerning the preference between plain and telescopic sights in astronomical instruments; from whence he returned in about two months.

In 168O he set out on a tour through France and Italy, to establish a friendly communication among the astronomers of Europe. In Paris he completed his observations on the great comet of that year, which he had before seen in England.

He returned to England in 1681, and married a lady, with whom he lived happily for 55 years after.

In l683 he published his "Theory of the Variation of the Magnetical Compass"; in which he supposes the whole globe of the earth to be one great magnet, having four magnetical poles or points of attraction, &c. The same year also he entered on a new method of finding the longitude, by an accurate observation of the moon's motion.

In the beginning of 1684, contemplating Kepler's laws of the periods and distances of the planets, he concluded that the centripetal force must decrease in proportion to the square of the distance reciprocally. He found himself however unable to make it out in any geometrical way; and therefore, after applying in vain for assistance to Mr. Hook and Sir Christopher Wren, he repaired to Cambridge to Mr. Newton, who fully supplied him with what he so ardently sought. But Halley having now found an immense treasure in Newton, could not rest till he had prevailed with the owner to enrich the public with it; and to this interview the world is in some measure indebted for the immortal Principia of Newton. That great work was published in 1686; and Halley, who had the whole care of the impression, prefixed to it a discourse of his own, giving a general account of the astronomical part of the work and also an elegant copy of verses in Latin.

In 1687 he undertook to explain the reason why the Mediterranean Sea never rises higher, though there is no visible discharge of the prodigious quantity of water that runs into it from nine large rivers, besides many small ones, and the constant setting in of the current at the mouth of the Straits; which he accounted for by the great quantity of waters raised from its surface by evaporation, which he showed by a calculation was fully adequate to the purpose.

Halley's active and elevated mind next ranged through various other fields of science; hence resulted his tracts on the construction of solid problems, or equations of the 3d and 4th powers, with a new method for the number and the limits of their roots; exact tables of the conjunctions of Venus and Mercury, with their use in discovering the parallax and distance of the sun; new tables for showing the values of annuities on lives, calculated from bills of mortality; the universal theorem for finding the foci of optic glasses. But it would be endless to enumerate all his valuable discoveries, then communicated to the Royal Society, and published in the Philosophical Transactions, of which for many years his pieces were the chief ornament and support, in all the sciences, astronomy, geometry, and algebra, optics and dioptrics, ballistics and artillery, speculative and experimental philosophy, natural history, antiquities, philology, and criticism; all abounding with ideas new, singular and useful.

In 1691, the Savilian professorship of astronomy at Oxford being vacant, Mr. Halley applied for that office, but without success: refusing to deny or conceal his sceptical turn of mind, though his own extraordinary merits were supported by the interest of Newton, he was rejected, and the office bestowed on Dr. Gregory.

In 1698 he procured from King William the appointment of captain of a ship, sent out for the express purpose of establishing his theory of the variation of the compass, which he had advanced in l683. He made another voyage on the same design the year following, and returned to England in September 1700, with numerous observations; from whence he soon after published his general chart, exhibiting at one view the variation of the compass in all these seas where the English navigators were acquainted. He was also soon after sent out again on a third voyage, to ascertain the course of the tides in every part of the British channel, of which, in 1702, he published a large chart.

Soon after, at the request of the Emperor of Germany, he made two journeys, to inspect the coasts of the Adriatic Sea, and to examine certain ports, which the emperor intended to construct or improve.

He returned in 1703, when he was appointed to succeed Dr. Wallis as professor of geometry at Oxford, and was at the same time honoured with the degree of doctor of laws. Here he soon employed himself in translating into Latin, from the Arabic, Apollonius's Section of a Ratio, and in restoring the same author's two last books on the Section of a Space, from the account given of them by Pappus; which were published in 1706. He next prepared an edition of the whole works of Apollonius, and ventured to supply the whole 8th book of the Conics, the original of whicb was lost. To this he added, Serenus on the Sections of the Cylinder and Cone, in Greek, with a Latin translation ; and published the whole in 1710. Besides these, the Miscellanea Curiosa, in 3 volumes 8vo, had come out under his direction, in 1708, consisting chiefly of pieces of his own, extracted from the Philosophical Transactions.

In 1713, Dr. Halley succeeded Sir Hans Sloane, in the office of Secretary to the Royal Society; which he resigned in 1721, having been appointed Astronomer Royal on the decease of Mr. Flamsteed in 1719. And although he was now 63 or 64 years of age, yet here for the space of 18 years he watched the heavens with the closest attention, hardly ever missing an observation, and, without any assistant, performed the whole business of the observatory himself.

About 1737 he was seized with a paralytic disorder in one of his hands. However, he still continued to come regularly once a week, to meet his friends in town on Thursdays, before the meeting of the Royal Society, at what is still called Dr. Halley's club. But his paralytic disorder increasing, his strength gradually decreased, till he expired Jan. 14, 1742, in the 86th year of his age; and his corpse was interred in the church-yard of Lee, near Blackheath.

--Beside the works before-mentioned, Dr. Halley's principal publications are,

• 1. Catalogus Stellarum Australium,
• 2. Tabulae Astronomicae,
• 3. The Astronomy of Comets.

With a multitude of papers in the Philosophical Transactions, from volume xi to volume lx.