Heroes of To-Day

by Mary Rosetta Parkman

After two years at the Harvard Observatory, he went to the Naval Academy at Annapolis as professor of mathematics and director of the observatory. A year later he accepted the professorship of astronomy and physics in the Western University at Pittsburg. For twenty years he filled this position and also that of director of the Allegheny Observatory, which under his leadership became the center of very important work.

When he took charge at the new observatory, he found no apparatus for scientific observations beyond a telescope, and no funds available for the purchase of the absolutely necessary instruments. How was he to obtain the expensive tools which he required for his work?

“If I can show the practical importance of astronomical observations, the means will be forthcoming,” he said.

At this moment a wonderful inspiration came to the professor. In traveling about the country he had been strongly impressed with the need of some standard system of keeping time. He believed that science ought to be able to come to the rescue and bring order out of confusion.

“This is my chance,” he now said, as he looked about his empty observatory. “If I can prove to the managers of the Pennsylvania Railroad that I can furnish them with a time-keeping system that will do away with the inconvenience of changing time with every forty or fifty miles of travel and all the troublesome reckonings and adjustments which that entails, I feel assured that they will provide the equipment which I need.”

It often happens that the learned masters of science are entirely removed in their interests and experience from the every-day world of business. They work in a sphere apart, and the offices of some practical middleman with an inventive turn of mind are required to make their discoveries of any immediate value. Professor Langley, on the contrary, had an appreciation of the demands of business, as well as the vital interests of science. He had lived in both worlds. Now, through his competent grasp of the needs of such a railroad center as Pittsburg, where the East and the West meet, he succeeded in working out a plan that was so sane and practical that it immediately recommended itself to the busy men in control of transportation problems. His observatory was provided with the apparatus for which he longed, and twice a day it automatically flashed out through signals, the exact time to all the stations on the Pennsylvania Railroad, a system controlling some eight thousand miles of lines. To Professor Langley, more than to any other person is due the effective regulation of standard time throughout the country.

During the years of hard work at Pittsburg, Professor Langley was invited to join several important scientific expeditions. These were the holidays of his busy life. His efficient work as leader of a coast survey party to Kentucky in 1869 to observe an eclipse of the sun won for him the opportunity to join the government expedition to Spain to study the eclipse of 1870. In the summer of 1878, he took a party of scientists to Pike’s Peak, and that winter he went to Mt. Etna for some further experiments on the heights. An article called “Wintering on Mount Etna,” which appeared in the “Atlantic Monthly,” proved that he could not only do important work in original research but that he could also write about it in a way calculated to appeal to the average reader.

During these years Professor Langley devoted a great deal of time and thought to astrophysics. This science, which is sometimes called “the new astronomy,” is concerned with special heat and light problems of the heavenly bodies—more especially, of course, with investigations and measurements of the radiant energy of the sun. To carry on his experiments he invented a wonderful electrical instrument called the bolometer, which is so delicately constructed for measuring heat that when one draws near to look at it the warmth of his face has a perceptible effect.

Professor Langley’s tests proved that the lantern of the fire-fly gives a cheaper form of light than is to be found anywhere else. Here Nature has demonstrated the possibility of providing illumination with no waste of energy in heat or in any other way. All the force goes into the light, while man’s devices for defeating darkness waste as much as ninety-nine per cent. of the energy consumed.

The Pittsburg years were rich in the joy of work well done, but they gave little of the inspiration and stimulus that comes from congenial companionship. For the most part, he had to content himself with the society of his book friends. The number of his solitary hours may be to a certain extent measured by the astonishing range of his reading.