The Portland daily press., 1886-07-28
COLBY UNIVERSITY.
Meeting of the Trustees in This City
Yesterday.
Professor William A. Rogers of Har-
ward Chosen Professor of Astron-
onny and Physics

The trustees of Colby University held a
meeting at the Free street Baptist church
yesterday. The principal business trans
acted was the election of Professor of
Astronomy and Physics.
The choice fell upon Prof. VIM. A. Rogers
of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard
University. He was born at New London,
Conn.,, in 1882; was educated at De Ruyter
Institute, Alfred Academy and Brown Uni
versity. He entered Brown in the Sophie
more class in 1854, and graduating in 1857.
he was elected tutor in Alfred University in
1857, and Professor of Mathematics and
Astronomy in the same institution in 1861
He held these positions for Is years, having
during the time special leaves of absence,
which he spent as follows: One year in
Yale College as special student in theoreti-
cal and applied mechanics; one year as a
special student in astronomy in Harvard
College Observatory, and six months SUISSE
quently as an assistant there. He was also
fourteen months in the United States Naval
service during the civil war. He was ap-
pointed assistant in the Observatory of Har-
ward University in 1870, and Assistant
Professor in 1877, which position he now
holds.
He received the degree of A. M. from Yale
College in 1876. He is also one of the four
Americans who have been elected honorary
members of the Royal Microscopical Society,
member of the National Academy of Arts
and Sciences, (the highest American scien-
tlflc organization, whose numbers are limited
to 100. also member Of the German. As
Economical Society, of the American Acad-
envy of Arts and Sciences, of the American
Micr0scopical Society, of the Society of
Mechanical Engineers, and of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science,
in which he was President of the Section of
Mathematics and Astronomy in 1883. In 1880
he visited London and Paris under the
auspices and at the expense of the Rumford
committee of the American Academy for the
purpose of obtaining authorized copies of
the Imperial Yard and the French Metre.
These copies were the first brought to the
United States, and served as the basis of the
standards of length made by him for Har-
ward, Yale, Columbia and Princeton Col
leges, for Cornell University, the University
of Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Instl
tute of Technology, the Lick Observatory,
and the United States Signal Service; also
for combined yard and metre for the De-
partment of Standards of the British Board
of Trade, which is to be used in the official
determination of the relative lengths of the
yard and metre.
In 1883 he was president of the Seventh
Day Baptist General Conference, and deliv-
cred the annual address. His special work
at the Harvard Observatory consisted in the
observation of all the stars down to the
ninth magnitude in the belt between 500 and
$50 north. This work has occupied II years
for the observations, and Is years for their
reduction. This was work undertaken by
the Harvard Observatory in conjunction
with ID other principal observatories of the
world.
He has in press two volumes of astronomi-
cal observations, of 480 and 200 PIP. each !;
also one of about 500 pp., prepared for the
press.
During the past year he has been engaged
in special study of the laws under which
different metals expand and contract under
variations of temperature, when their mass
is taken into account He has also been
making special investigation Of the errors
to which the best thermometers are liable
For many years his work has been quite
largely with physical problems. and it has
increased so far in that direction that he will
give nearly his entire spare time to it if re-
lieved from his night work. His principal
reason for willingness to go to Waterville
are to associate more with young men, to do
class room work and to carry on special in
vestigations, for which he has the apparatus :;
also to be free from his night work in practi-
cal astronomy.