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Watson (JAMES CRAIG an American)

JAMES CRAIG, an American astronomer; born in Ontario, Can., Jan. 28, 1838; was graduated at the University of Michigan at the age of 19, and appointed Professor of Astronomy in WATSON that institution at the age of 21; called to the chair of astronomy in the University of Wisconsin in 1879. He was the discoverer of 23 asteroids, and received the Lalande medal of the Paris Academy of Sciences for the discovery of six of them in one year. He was a member of the Eclipse Expeditions to Iowa in 1869 and to Sicily in 1870, and took charge of the Transit of Venus Expedition to Peking, China, in 1874. He was also the discoverer of several comets.

He was for many years the actuary of an insurance company, and accumulated a moderate fortune by commercial enterprises, of which he left $16,000 to the National Academy of Sciences, the income of which is partly devoted to a research fund and partly to the bestowal of the "Watson Medal" of the Academy.

His most lasting work was the writing of his "Theoretical Astronomy," a standard work on the computation of orbits and the theory of perturbation. He died in Madison, Wis., Nov. 23, 1880.