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Walker (SEARS COOK an American)

SEARS COOK, an American astronomer; born in Wilmington, Mass., March 28, 1805; was graduated at Harvard College in 1825; taught school for several years near Boston and in Philadelphia, and actively engaged in scientific work. He prepared a set of parallactic tables for the latitude of Philadelphia, which greatly facilitated the process of computing the phases of an occultation in 1834; planned the organization of an observatory in connection with the Philadelphia Philadelphia high h school in 1837; published a valuable paper on the periodical meteors of August and November, 1841; and in 1845 received an appointment in the Washington Observatory, where on Feb. 2, 1847, four months after the discovery of the planet Neptune, he indentified that planet with a star observed by Lalande in May, 1795.

From 1847 till his death he had charge of the longitude computations of the United States Coast Survey, and in this connection he developed with Professor Bache the method of determining differences of longitude by telegraph, which was first put into successful operation in 1849. He died in Cincinnati, O., Jan. 30, 1853.