Frank Evans Seagrave: A Timeline of His Life & Contributions in Historical Context: 1900 - 1910

Frank Evans Seagrave continued his astronomical endeavors as the beginning of the 20th century approached. Throughout the next 34 years his prolific observations and calculations were submitted to many of the astronomical journals of the time. Part II (1900 – 1910) will highlight a few of his achievements in historical context.

I wish to remind the reader that an Excel spreadsheet posted on our Google Drive can be used to access the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) database. There one can retrieve Seagrave contributions. I’m sure a few have been missed, but I believe the ones uncovered are representative of his work.

Instructions on how to retrieve the specific volumes can be found here: ADS.

From this point forward, when you encounter Google Drive, click on it and you will be transferred to our Google Drive where you can view additional material.

In following timeline, Seagrave specific material is presented in bold text.

Also, when you see this symbol •, it means you can bring up the journals spreadsheet. Select the Biblio-code of a journal entry you wish to view and copy and paste that into the ADS database to access the details. 

Throughout the time period covered by this Part II article, Seagrave corresponded frequently with E.C Pickering of Harvard. I have posted a few of those letters on our Google Drive.

1900 Historical Highlights

Frank: 40 Years-Old

•The Eastman Kodak Company releases the Brownie camera on February 1, revolutionizing photography for the masses. 

• Bayer aspirin in tablet form, first produced in Germany in 1899, receives a United States patent in February 27, 1900. 

• Work on New York City’s subway begins on March 24.

• On April 30, Hawaii becomes an official US territory.

• On May 18, Frank Baum publishes his children’s book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, leaving us many memorable quotes like, “There is no place like home.”; “Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”; and “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” 

• On July 2, an experimental airship (dirigible) takes off in Germany. This is the brainchild of Ferdinand von Zeppelin. This 420 foot long airship reaches an altitude of 1350 feet and flew 3.7 miles. This airship uses a rigid infrastructure was a metal framework that encloses gasbags.

• The Great Galveston Hurricane, a category 4 storm, makes landfall on September 8, near Galveston, Texas. The city is leveled, leaving an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 dead (8,000 fatalities is the number usually quoted) in the region.

• Wilbur and Orville Wright test a biplane glider at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina during early autumn. This “vehicle” is really nothing more than a “double-decker” hang-glider, stabilized by men holding ropes as it rises above the ground due to “lift” created by the wind across the wings surfaces.

• October 19: German physicist Max Planck proposes the revolutionary concept of the quantum theory

• On November 6, William McKinley wins a second term as president of the United States. He ran on the platform of “the full dinner pail.”

• Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams on November 4, 1899, but dated 1890.

Frank, his mom Mary, and C.A.R. Lundlin (chief optician for Alvan Clark & Sons) travel to Southern Pines, North Caroline for the May 28 total solar eclipse. Lundlin had been on the 1878 Harvard expedition to Fort Worth Texas. Lundlin takes photos of the corona during totality using a 4-inch photographic telescope of about 5.5 foot focal length. Seagrave uses a 2-inch and 3-inch telescope for observations. Once again he uses the Victor Kullberg chromometer to record precise timings of first thru last contact. Totality lasts 1 minute and 34 seconds. Mary observes shadow bands from 3 to 6 minutes before totality. •

1901 Historical Highlights

• After being reelected to the presidency on November 6, 1900, William McKinley begins a second term on March 4.

• In December, a black basalt stele containing a cuneiform text is found in what is now Iran by French archeologist Jacques de Morgan. It reveals 282 laws written in cuneiform by Babylonian king Hammurabi between 1755 and 1750 BCE. 

• Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom dies on January 22 after serving 63 years and 216 days on the throne. Her son Edward the VII succeeds her.

• Beatrix Potter privately publishes The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

• On August 6, Robert Falcon Scott begins his expedition (known as Discovery) from England to Antarctica. Once reaching the continent, treks to within about 530 miles of the South Pole. Returns home in September 1904.

• President McKinley is shot twice at the Pan-American exhibition in Buffalo, New York. He dies on September 14 from his wounds. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt becomes president. 

• On December 12, atop Signal Hill in St John's in Newfoundland, Canada, Guglielmo Marconi receives a radio message in Morse code transmitted from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, about 2,200 miles away. 

• The Eastman Kodak Company introduces the 120 film format for the Brownie 2 camera that was introduced in 1901. 

• H.G. Wells’ classic science fiction work, “The First Men in the Moon,” is published in hardcover. “Poor Cavor! He did have such a terrible cold.”

• Annie Jump Cannon, while working under Director E.C. Pickering of Harvard College Observatory, revises a stellar classification system based upon a star’s spectra, indicating temperature. The lettering scheme is: O (hottest), B, A, F, G, K, M (coolest). Our Sun is a G2 type star.

Frank Seagrave begins observing the newly discovered Nova Persei with a two-inch telescope on February 23. He also views it with a Browning direct vision three prism spectroscope. Nova Persei is a classical nova – a binary star system in which the white dwarf companion accretes material from the main sequence primary. •

Seagrave also contributes double-star observations this year. •

1902 Historical Highlights

• July 17: Willis Haviland Carrier of New York state invents the first electrical air conditioner.

• French film director George Melies produces a short film, A Trip to the Moon, incorporating special effects. It is released on September 1. See the full movie here: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=d017e8b6c7d64dcd&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS805US805&tbm=vid&source=lnms&prmd=visnbmtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj69eqD4peGAxVGEVkFHd0oDWMQ0pQJegQIERAB&q=watch%20a%20trip%20to%20the%20moon&biw=1694&bih=945&dpr=1#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:89714a20,vid:xLVChRVfZ74,st:0

• In November, President Theodore Roosevelt, known as “Teddy,” is on a bear hunting trip in Mississippi. Other members of the hunting party had already succeeded in bagging a bear, while the President had not. His handlers capture and tied a black bear to a tree and suggest the President shoot it. Roosevelt refuse, saying it was unsportsmanlike. Well, the incident became political fodder. Brooklyn shopkeepers Morris and Rose Michtom were somehow inspired by the story and soon thereafter create the “Teddy Bear.” Initially they were hand sewn by Rose. In 1903 they open a production factory and had much success.

Seagrave contributes many observations to the astronomical journals on a variety of topics during 1902, including Nova Persei, the Leonid meteor shower, and the equatorial diameter of Saturn. There is a great paper where Seagrave comments on an interesting theory that thunderstorms can be linked to the Moon’s phases. He also supplies ephemeris on Comet 1895 Swift II and the asteroid Eros. As for the comet, an orbital period of just over 7 years is calculated, but the comet is never seen again. •

One primary focus is on his ephemeris for Comet 1902b Perrine. This comet is discovered by Lick Observatory astronomer Charles Dillon Perrine on September 1, 1902, using a 12-inch Clark refractor. Seagrave provides many ephemerides for this comet. These calculations show that the comet will pass within about two-million miles of Mercury on November 29-30. They also reveal that this is the comet’s first visit to the inner solar system, and that due to its parabolic orbit will never return. •

1903 Historical Highlights

• January 18, 1903 - The first public two-way wireless communication between Europe and the United States is achieved by Guglielmo Marconi when he transmits a message from a telegraph station in South Wellfleet, Massachusetts from President Theodore Roosevelt to the King of England using Morse Code. Simultaneously a message from the King of England is likewise transmitted from Poldu, England to the President. Messages received by both parties.

• The novel, Call of the Wild, is published by American author Jack London. Set in 1897, it tells the story of a dog named Buck who experiences many adventures as a sled dog in Canada’s Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush (1896 - 1899.)

• April 23-30: At a conference in Madrid, Spain, Ivan Pavlov, Russian neurologist and physiologist, presents a paper on his conditioned reflex experiments with dogs. Pavlov had set up an experiment in which he rings a bell shortly before presenting food to the dogs. At first, the dogs do not respond to the bell. However, eventually, the dogs begin to salivate at the sound of the bell alone.

• May 23 - July 26: The first cross-country road trip by car in the United States from San Francisco to New York City. The total of about 5,500 miles is driven in a 1903 Winton touring car. Took about 50 days of actual driving.

• On October 1 – 13, the first World Series baseball games are played. In the best of nine series, the Boston Americans beat the Pittsburgh Pirates five games to three.

• The 12 minute silent short film, The Great Train Robbery, is released on December 1, by the Edison Manufacturing Company. It is quite successful. 

• December 17, at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully fly their Wright Flyer, a twin propeller gas powered engine, 120 feet in 12 seconds with Orville at the controls. It flies only about 10 feet above the ground.

• In papers published in 1903, Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy identify the process of radioactive half-life: initially defined as the amount of time required for a radioactive substance to decay into other elements.

Seagrave continues to provide observations of Nova Persei. Comet computations are a specialty of his. He provides search ephemeris for the return of Comet Brooks 1889 V and Comet Faye, and continues to supply ephemerides for both during the year for astronomers to locate them. E.C. Pickering of HCO uses Seagrave’s ephemeris for the opposition of Eros in 1904-1905. •

Seagrave reports on his continued measurement of Saturn’s rings. In 1851 and 1852, Russian astronomer Otto von Struve’s research of Saturn’s rings allegedly indicated the distance between the planet's disc and the bright B ring was decreasing very rapidly. In fact, von Struve predicted that the rings would crash down on the planet's "surface" by the year 2150. In 1901 and 1902, Frank made micrometer measurements of the planet and its rings. Seagrave noted no decrease. (Later in 1914 and 1915 Seagrave makes the same measurements. No change is detected.) •

Seagrave contributes 981 variable star estimates to E.C. Pickering of Harvard College Observatory for the year ending September 1902. •

Then before years-end 1903, some event occurred in Seagrave’s life that changed everything for a few years.

 Besides contributing to the various astronomical journals of the day, Seagrave submitted observations and ephemerides to Professor E.C. Pickering, Director of Harvard College Observatory. Back in 1984 I was granted permission to visit the Harvard University Archives to research the correspondence collection of Pickering. There I found a wealth of information.

I was able to enlist the staff to make copies of letters between Seagrave and Pickering. Unfortunately, quite a few of the copies had the date truncated.

Despite that setback, I do have a small sample that I have scanned and have made available on our (Google Drive). As I recall, I could only request a limited number of copies. I did come across a very curious letter from Seagrave to Pickering dated October 19, 1903. A transcription of it follows:

Prof. E.C. Pickering,

Dear Sir.

Do you know of anybody that would like to buy an 8-inch equatorial telescope? I would like to sell mine if I could get a reasonable price for it. I thought that I would write to you before placing it in A. Clarke & Sons hands to sell. The telescope has clock work, micrometer, two sets of eyepieces, etc.

Yours etc,

F.E. Seagrave 

On November 2, 1903 Pickering responds:

Dear Mr. Seagrave,

I regret that I know of no one who wants an 8-inch telescope, and can think of no better course to follow than to communicate with the Clarks, unless possibly to advertise in Popular Astronomy.

Very sincerely yours,

E.C. Pickering

What prompted Seagrave to offer his beloved Clark telescope for sale? We may never know the reason, but as I examine the next few years in the timeline it is quite apparent that whatever it was had a big impact on Seagrave’s astronomical contributions.

1904 Historical Highlights

• The United States assumes construction of the Panama Canal on May 4. This 51 mile long shortcut across the Isthmus of Panama connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Ships no longer had to sail around the Straits of Magellan (Cape Horn) at the tip of South America, saving 5 months of travel time. Completed on April 15, 1914. 

• On May 5, 1904, Boston Americans pitcher Cy Young, pitches the first perfect game against the Philadelphia Athletics.

• On June 10, Max Wolf of Heidelberg discovers main belt asteroid 522 Helga.

• On June 13, the Mount Wilson Observatory is founded by George Ellery Hale with the leasing of a site in the San Gabriel Mountains just outside of Pasadena, California. The location is selected for solar observing due to the steady atmosphere at the 5,710 summit. The first telescope installed there is the Snow Solar Telescope built at Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin and transported to Mount Wilson. It is hauled up the mountain, set up in January 1905, and experiences first “sun” light” on March 15, 1905.

• On June 21, another milestone transportation project is completed: the Trans-Siberian Railway. June or July 21. I’ve seen both months. Construction began on March 9, 1891. Stretches 5,772 miles from Moscow to Vladivostok

• English astronomer Edward Maunder, a sunspot observer, notices that when a new solar cycle begins, groups of spots form at higher solar latitudes. As the cycle progresses from maximum to minimum – 11 years on average, formation of the spot groups migrate towards lower latitudes and the solar equator. When the next cycle begins the process begins all over again. When plotted, the Butterfly Diagram results.

• On November 8 Theodore Roosevelt wins the US presidential election. This would be a second term, after having served as president for three years after the shooting of (September 6, 1901) and death of (September 14, 1901) William McKinley.

• December 3, the sixth moon of Jupiter, Himalia, is discovered photographically using the 36-inch Crossley reflector at Lick Observatory by Charles Perrine. Jupiter’s fifth moon, Amalthea, was discovered visually by E.E. Barnard on September 9, 1892, also using Lick’s 36-inch reflector.

Seagrave provides search ephemeris thru January for the return of Encke’s Comet for its 1904-1905 visit to the inner solar system. He provides further observations of Nova Persei from February 20 thru April 20. He also provides a report on his observations of variable star U Orionis from December 31, 1901 thru May 13, 1903. •

However, for some unknown reason Seagrave is only referenced eight times in the journals of 1904. This trend continues for a few years.

1905 Historical Highlights

• January 5: the seventh moon of Jupiter, Elara, is discovered photographically using the 36-inch Crossley reflector at Lick Observatory by Charles Perrine.

• On March 4, President Theodore Roosevelt’s is inaugurated for the second time. 

• Percival Lowell, astronomer and mathematician, begins his search for a ninth planet that he called “Planet X.” Based upon the orbital perturbations of both Uranus and Neptune, calculations suggest specific areas of the sky for photographic searches. From atop Mars Hill in Flagstaff, Arizona, the first search project continues until 1910 with no success.

• Albert Einstein has a good year in 1905. He publishes two very important papers (among others). On September 26 his special theory of relativity; and on November 2 his famous matter-equivalence formula theory: E = mc²

Seagrave’s absence from the astronomical journals for 1905 and 1906 is a mystery, especially considering his contributions in prior years. More detective work is required on my part.

1906 Historical Highlights

• Based upon stellar spectroscopic observations at Harvard College Observatory and his own studies in star classifications, Danish astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung reveals there is a correlation between a star’s color (temperature) and its absolute magnitude (its brightness if were at a distance of 10 parsecs, 32.6 light-years.) When this data is plotted on a scatter graph, it shows what we now call main sequence stars (like the Sun.) See historical highlights for 1911 when Hertzsprung publishes this diagram. (Henry Norris Russell is separately working on this research, and in 1913 the H-R (Hertzsprung-Russell) Diagram is created.

• On a journey begun in 1903, Roald Amundsen and a crew of six men set out to navigate Canada’s Northwest Passage in a 47 ton, 70 foot by 20 foot sloop. On August 17, 1906, the expedition is a success. Boat was named Gjøa.

• On April 18, the San Francisco earthquake occurs as the land slips north and south along the San Andreas fault line by about 20 feet! The resulting 7.9 estimated magnitude event kills more than 3,000 people, and fires destroy much of the city.

• June 8: President Theodore Roosevelt signs another important act into law, the Antiquities Act. This law is enacted to protect Native American cultural sites, as well as to protect the vast lands and natural resources west of the Mississippi. Roosevelt uses this act to expand the National Parks System.

• June 30: Roosevelt signs the Pure Food and Drug Act. Its purpose is to prevent the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious food, drugs, medications, and liquors...” It went into effect on January 1, 1907.

• President Theodore Roosevelt signs into law a revised Naturalization Act on June 29 and implemented on September 27. It provides new rules and requirements for becoming an Untied States citizen.

• December 14: Charles Pathé , a French film pioneer, opens one of the earliest luxury cinemas in Paris called The Omnia-Pathé Cinema. Seating capacity is 250 seats.

• Percival Lowell publishes Mars and its Canals in December. This work explores the features of Mars Lowell observed through his telescope in Flagstaff, Arizona. Particularly interesting is his speculations on the Martian “canals,” their purpose and construction. His first book, Mars, was published back in 1895.

While Frank is reading a German magazine, he comes upon an old observation of Halley's Comet. He decides at once to work out an ephemeris for the comet so that he would know where in the sky it might be. Mr. Seagrave works on the calculations for three years and finally sends the ephemerides for the orbit to E.C. Pickering, Director of HCO) in 1909. •

1907 Historical Highlights

• January: Percival Lowell presents a talk on Mars in Sayles Hall at Brown University. At this event Dr. Winslow Upton of Ladd Observatory introduces H.P. Lovecraft to Lowell. Frank Seagrave may have also met Lowell at this time.

July 10: The Providence Journal runs a story about Frank Seagrave and the planet Mars. This appears to have been an interview conducted by a newspaper reporter. Following are a few details from that story.

Astronomer Talks about Mars

Frank E. Seagrave Much Interested in Planet

Has Seen the Polar Caps

“I observed Mars on the night of July 5, but it is too low in the sky for good observation here and moreover, the atmosphere is not clear enough.” 

“I could not see the canals on Mars; in fact, no one can hope to see them from these parts. At not over 12 observatories have they been seen. Neither Yerkes, Washington nor Harvard has ever sighted the canals Prof. Lowell told me last winter.”

“I have never formed an opinion definitely as to Prof. Lowell’s theory of the inhabitability of Mars, on which he lectured in January in Sayles Hall before a very large audience.”

• September 7, 1907: The largest ship at the time, The RMS Lusitania, sets sail from Liverpool, England, to New York City on its maiden voyage. The ship is 787 feet in length and 87.5 feet in width, with a weight of 31,550 tons. The Lusitania is also the fastest ship at the time. If you do not remember her place in history, see the 1915 historical highlights to learn her fate.

• October 17: Guglielmo Marconi continues with his wireless radio transmissions and begins commercial transatlantic Morse Code communications from Clifden, Ireland, to Glace Bay in Nova Scotia. The business enterprise is called The Marconi International Marine Communication Company. 

• October 21: The fossilized mandible (lower jawbone) of one of our ancestors is found in a sand quarry near Heidelberg, Germany, by Daniel Hartmann. It is now thought to be a subspecies of Homo erectus and given the classification of Homo erectus heidelbergensis. Back in 2010 new dating techniques provide an age of 609,000 +- 40,000 years. 

• December: A chemist, Leo Baekeland, invents Bakelite, and uses the term plastic (which means capable of being shaped or molded) for the first time. Note: did he read Wells’ First Men in the Moon – Cavor/Cavorite?) Plastic has many material advantages: it can be molded into any shape; is heat resistant; nonconductive. Unfortunately plastic has become one of our primary environmental pollutants. It can take up to 500 years to breakdown to the point where it is too small to be seen, but it never disappears.

• English biologist naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace publishes the book, Is Mars Habitable? A Critical Examination of Professor Percival Lowell's Book "Mars and Its Canals," with an Alternative Explanation. In this work Wallace rebuts Percival Lowell’s speculation on the alleged Martian “canals,” their construction and purpose, by an intelligent species. Wallace explored this topic of other-worldly life in his 1904 book Man’s Place in the Universe, Wallace believed that the Earth was the only planet in our solar system capable of supporting life, and that humankind was unique. (Note: Unique perhaps, but that does not preclude the existence of any non-human species. DAH) Keep in mind, Wallace had also supported a theory of the transmutation of species, which later “evolved” into Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection. Alas, there are no Martians.

W. F. Denning, a British amateur astronomer, notes in an article about past planetary observations, that Frank Seagrave reported observing white spots in Venus’ cloud tops from January 16- February 5, 1878. The famous French astronomer and artist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot had reported these same white spots and is mentioned in the same paragraph. •

Going forward in our timeline, references to Frank Seagrave in the journals continued to be sporadic at best. For 1907 I found only 1; for 1908 I found 4; for 1909 I found only 8. If anyone knows or can suggest a reason for this five plus year (1904 – 1909) drought please email me. 

Fortunately his contributions recovered in 1910.

1908 Historical Highlights

• January 1: A new tradition for ringing in the new year is established in Times Square in New York City by the owner of the New York Times newspaper, whose headquarters is at that location. A lighted iron ball just five feet in diameter is lowered from the roof of the building.

• A wonderful children’s novel, The Wind in the Willows, is published by British author Kenneth Grahame. It chronicles the adventures of Mole, Badger and Rat as they help Mr. Toad, who moves from one fad to the next in quick succession. His current obsession is motorcars. WGBH, Boston’s PBS affiliate, produced a stop-action animation of this story that aired on March 18, 1989. It was part of their Long Ago and Far Away series. Four additional story lines were produced.

• May 14, 1908: Today we believe technology is moving at a very fast pace, but rapid advancements in science and technology are not new occurrences. Wilbur Wright and his first passenger, mechanic Charles Furmas, fly 1968 feet in 29 seconds. Later that day they fly 2,125 feet in 4 minutes and 2 seconds. 

• June 13: Anne of Green Gables, a novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery, is published. This work tells the story of Anne Shirley, an orphaned girl’s adventures on Prince Edward Island, Canada in the late 1890’s. American audiences were introduced to Anne when PBS broadcast the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s miniseries beginning on February 17, 1986. Canadian actress Megan Follows brilliantly portrays Anne. The miniseries was also part of the Wonderworks series. My late wife Tina and I thoroughly enjoyed the series, even watching it again and again during WGBH/PBS pledge drives.

• June 30: The Tunguska Event - A small stony meteor about 160-200 feet wide enters the Earth’s atmosphere above the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Siberia, travelling at an estimated speed of 16.6 miles per second. It does not reach the ground, but instead explodes at an altitude of 3-6 miles. The explosive force was estimated to be anywhere from 3 to 50 megatons (one megaton is equivalent to one million tons of TNT). This so-called air burst spread downwards and flattens approximately 80 million trees over 830 square miles. Research expeditions to the area did not occur for some time due to the remoteness of the region. When the area is reached, no crater is found, but microscopic spherules found in the soil are analyzed and reasoned to be of an extraterrestrial origin.

• On July 1, SOS is formally recognized as the international Morse Code distress signal. While the letters were initially not an abbreviation for any phrase, several expressions became popular: “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship.”

• July 26: The BOI (BI), Bureau of Investigation, is established in Washington, DC. In 1935 its name is changed to FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation).

• Cambridge University, England: German physicist Johannes Wilhelm “Hans” Geiger and New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford develop a device that can detect the alpha particles produced by radioactive decay. The device has become known simply as the Geiger Counter. 

• September 17: A test flight of their new Type A Flyer for the U.S. Signal Corps on September 17 ends in disaster. Orville is accompanied by Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge. At about 100 feet in altitude a propeller split and the plane crashes. Orville suffers a broken leg and broken ribs. Selfridge suffers a fractured skull and dies that evening, becoming the first person to die in a plane crash. (It is interesting to note that the Wright brothers had promised their father that the two of them would never fly together, for fear of them simultaneously suffering the same fate. One exception was granted however. On a six-minute flight on May 25, 1910, at Huffman Prairie in Ohio, Orville was the pilot and Wilbur the passenger. See 1910 highlights.)

• September 27: Henry Ford’s first Model T rolls out of his assembly line plant in Detroit, Michigan. It sets many standards in car production in the United States. While most cars in the US prior to the debut of the Model T have the steering wheel installed on the right-hand side of the vehicle, the “Tin Lizzie,” as it became known as, has it installed on the left-hand side. The four-cylinder engine provides a top speed of 42 miles-per-hour! 

• November 3, 1908 - William Howard Taft is elected President, succeeding Roosevelt.

• Henrietta Swan Leavitt, while working at Harvard College Observatory under director E.C. Pickering, is studying photographic plates of stars in the Magellanic Clouds. She finds 47 Cepheid variable stars, stars whose outer layers expand and contract (pulsate) on a recurring time scale, causing a change in luminosity (brightness). This period-luminosity relationship is used to determine distances to galaxies.

• George Ellery Hale, astrophysicist and founder of Mount Wilson Observatory, using a modified spectroheliograph, discovers that sunspots were the manifestation of strong magnetic fields. He determines that when simple spot groups formed in the one solar hemisphere during the beginning of a solar cycle, the leading spot(s) has a specific polarity, while the trailing spot(s) has the opposite polarity. At the same time, spot groups in the other hemisphere were opposite those of the north. When the 11-year (average) cycle ends and the new cycle begins, spot groups in both hemispheres change polarity and are the reverse of the prior cycle. So in fact, there is a 22-year cycle when you consider the magnetic reversal.

Seagrave provides search ephemeris to Popular Astronomy for Comet Halley’s 1910 apparition. •

1909 Historical Highlights

• January 9: The British Antarctic Expedition, under the command of Ernest Shackleton, reaches the furthest southern latitude of 88° 23' S, shy of the South Pole by about 97.5 nautical miles. Shackleton’s ship, the Nimrod, is a refurbished wooden-hulled, three-mastered sealing vessel, weighing in at only 334 gross tons. It hosts a crew of over 30 men. Though they reach the continent, they never reach the South Pole on this trip. A group of them do climb Mount Erebus, the second highest volcano in Antarctica.

• January 29: Seagrave sends a search ephemeris for Halley’s Comet to E.C. Pickering of HCO. I have posted that letter to Pickering on our (Google Drive). 

• February 12: The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) is founded. The date is chosen to coincide with Abraham Lincoln’s birth date. In response to the Springfield, Illinois, race riot of August 14 – 16, 1908, it is decided a civil rights organization was seriously needed. While it is initially formed to protect the civil rights of African Americans, its current mission statement is “to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination.” 

• March 4: William Howard Taft is inaugurated as the 27th President of the United States.

• March 31: Construction is begun in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on the Olympic class ocean liner, RMS Titanic, with the laying of the keel that would become the backbone of the ship. The ship is 882 feet 9-inches in length, 92 feet 6-inches in width, 175 feet in height from the keel to the top of the smokestacks, and weighing in at 46,329 gross tons.

• April 6: Robert E. Peary, a United Staes naval officer and explorer, supposedly reaches the geographic North Pole on this date. (There has always been some skepticism regarding this claim.) On July 6, 1908, Robert Peary begins his eighth Arctic expedition to the North Pole. The SS Roosevelt sails from New York Harbor with a crew of 22 men. The ship, a three-mastered schooner designed by Peary, is 182 feet long and 35 feet wide, and weighing in at 654 gross tons. Its hull is also 30 inches thick in areas for the same reason. The mast with sails unfurled was only supplemental to the primary 1,000 horsepower steam engine. Top speed is about 9 miles-per-hour. Though he is still credited with achieving success, analysis of various reports have suggested he may not have attained his goal.

• July 25: Louis Bleriot, a French aviator, takes off from Calais, France, in a single-winged plane, to cross the English Channel and lands in Dover, England. His flight, the first of its kind, takes 36 minutes and 30 seconds to cross the 24 mile distance. In doing so, he claims a £1,000 ($4,870 US at the time) prize.

• August 2: The US Signal Corps purchases a Military Flyer bi-plane from Orville and Wilbur Wright for $30,000. This two-passenger model can fly an average of 42.5 miles per hour for a distance of 125 miles.

• August 21: Though planet Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh on photographic plates on February 18, 1930 at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, an examination of much earlier images taken at Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin by E.E. Barnard on August 21 and November 11, 1909, do reveal what later became known as Pluto.

• September 11: Max Wolff, astronomer and comet hunter, of Heidelberg University in Germany, recovers Comet Halley on a photographic plate. This is the first time photography is used for such a search.

During the fall of 1909, "prophets" and doomsayers are predicting dire earthly calamities because of the return of Halley's Comet from the outer reaches of our solar system. Seagrave continues to send computed positions for Halley’s Comet thru the end of 1909. When Halley is recovered photographically on September 11, it is very close to where he said it would be. In fact, Seagrave's calculations were better than many of the professionals. •

1910 Historical Highlights

Frank: 50 Years-Old

• January: Do you remember conducting lab experiments in high school or college using Drosophila fruit flies? Who can forget that days or weeks after the experiments were completed the lab was still abuzz with successive generations. Well, you can thank US geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan for his research into heredity through specific genes on chromosomes. After subjecting fruit flies to agents which could cause mutations, he bred the fruit flies and carefully studied the offspring. Morgan’s research explained how chromosomes determined heredity.

• January 12: While everyone is anxiously awaiting the return of Halley’s Comet from the depths of our solar system since its last inner solar system encounter in 1835, a new comet is observed from the Transvaal region of South Africa. Following perihelion on January 17, this Great January Comet of 1910 moves into northern hemisphere skies. Many casual observers thought that somehow Comet Halley, not expected to be a naked-eye object for three to four months, had arrived early. It is easily seen in evening twilight, displaying a curved 50 degree tail. (This comet exceeds the brightness of Comet Halley.) For a time it is even visible in broad daylight.

• January – May: You may remember in my 1906 highlights I had mentioned Seagrave’s interest in Halley’s Comet. While Frank is reading a German magazine, he comes upon an old observation of Halley's Comet. He decides to work out an ephemeris for the comet so that he would know where to search for it in the sky. When the comet is recovered by German astronomer and astrophotography pioneer Max Wolf on a photographic plate taken on September 11, 1909, it is very close to where Seagrave had calculated it would be.

• Based on Seagrave’s observations Frank predicts that the comet will become a naked eye object by New Year's Day, 1910, and by late March or mid-April, much detail will be observable. Spectroscopic data obtained by other astronomers reveal cyanogen gas in Halley’s tail, through which the Earth is predicted to pass. Of course panic sets in throughout the world. Click this link to read an article I wrote for the Rhode Island Historical Society’s Journal, Vol. 45, May 1986: https://www.rihs.org/history_journal/rhode-island-history-journal-vol-45-may-1986/ It provides a Rhode Island prospective on this apparition of Halley’s Comet and Frank E. Seagrave’s contributions.

• February 8, 1910 - The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) is founded. Its current mission statement is to "prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law." Unfortunately, officials and volunteers in the organization apparently did not adhere to this declaration. In 2023, BSA shells out 2.46 billion dollars to settle sexual abuse claims. (May 7, 2024: BSA changes its name to Scouting America, which will take effect on February 8, 2025.)

• May 25: Prior to this date, Orville and Wilbur Wright had never flown together. Years prior they promised their father they would not do so because if an accident occurred perhaps both of them would die in a crash. However, on this date, Milton Wright gave the boys permission to take a flight together. That flight in Dayton, Ohio, lasts 6-minutes. Later that same day, Orville had another passenger. His 82-year old father joins him on a 7-minute fight, soaring about 350-feet above the ground. What a moment that must have been!

• June 3, 1910: Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen sets sail from Norway on a journey to reach the South Pole. His ship, the Fram, is specifically built for polar ice conditions. This three-mastered schooner is 127 feet 8-inches in length, 34 feet in width, and powered by a diesel engine. Crew complement is 19 men. Amundsen’s quest for the South Pole continues into 1911.

• June 15: Meanwhile, another explorer, Robert Falcon Scott, in his ship Terra Nova, embarks on the British Antarctic Expedition (aka, the Terra Nova Expedition) from Cardiff, South Wales. The Terra Nova is a converted three-masted wooden-hulled whaling ship with one smokestack. It weighs in at 764 gross tons, is 187 feet in length and 31.4 feet in width. It is equipped with a steam engine with a screw propeller. It has a crew complement of 65, including scientists. Because Scott is fundraising in Britain at the time, he later joins the ship in South Africa.

• June 19: The dirigible LZ-7 Deutschland makes its maiden voyage in Germany. This “zeppelin” airship is to provide the first commercial airship passenger flights. (Ferdinand Zeppelin pioneered rigid airships, and the name became synonymous for all rigid airships; like the word Kleenex is used for all facial tissue.) 

• June 28: During a promotional flight to publicize the passenger air service, the airship crashes during a thunderstorm. Though everyone survives, I have no doubt that it was a media disaster for DELAG (the first passenger airline company) which had organized the event.

• December 10: The Terra Nova gets trapped in pack ice for 20 days, but does manage to free itself. The adventure continues into 1911.

• Williamina Fleming, one of E.C. Pickering’s women computers at Harvard College Observatory, has the job of classifying stars based upon their spectra. She discovers the first white dwarf, a star 10 solar masses or less that expended its nuclear fuel, causing its outer layers to expand into space as a planetary nebular. M57, the Ring Nebula, is an example of this stellar evolution. Only the hot stellar core remains. In billions, or perhaps trillions, of years it will become a black dwarf when it will no longer emit light. The nebula will dissipate long before that. Our Sun will evolve in this manner.

Throughout 1910, Frank Seagrave contributes many ephemerides for Halley’s Comet to multiple astronomical journals. • While he is already respected for his prior contributions to astronomical research, his computational work on Halley’s sky coordinates are very well received worldwide. In addition, Frank’s celebrity in Providence, Rhode Island grows even larger. See authors note following the 1910 highlights.

Besides Halley’s Comet, Seagrave provides ephemeris for Comet 1910 b (Metcalf) for October and November, and also provides ephemeris for bright asteroids Hebe, Metis, Hygeia and Massalia. •

On November 28, 1910, Mary Seagrave, Frank’s mother, passes away.

• End of Part II •

Part III will cover the years 1911 through 1920. During this time-span Frank E. Seagrave is referenced 146 times among in astronomical journals.

Author’s Note

When I became historian at the urging of past historian William (Bill) Gucfa many, many years ago, he provided me with whatever materials he had already uncovered regarding Frank E. Seagrave. This included a few copies of old newspaper articles Bill had obtained using the microfilm viewers at the Rhode Island Historical Society (RIHS) on Hope Street in Providence. These “wet” process copies unfortunately faded very quickly. I could barely read them. I visited the RIHS and reviewed their Providence Journal catalog of material to find additional articles to tell my story of Frank E. Seagrave and Halley’s Comet.

The articles I did “print” over 40 years ago are now barely readable as well. To provide the local angle to this historical context document I decided to return to the old newspaper articles and hopefully new technology would allow me to digitally save the wanted articles in order to share them with you.

Fortunately I only recently learned that a service called NewsBank provides access to thousands of newspapers, including the Providence Journal. When I used their search engine I found many more references on Seagrave than listed in the RIHS catalog. I contacted NewsBank to gain unrestricted access to their digitally scanned database of Providence Journal papers. Unfortunately that service is restricted to licensed institutions like colleges, universities, libraries and others. Rhode Island College is one of those institutions, but one has to visit the campus and log in as a guest.

If I decide to pursue that avenue, I will be able to download every Seagrave article as a PDF to further preserve his legacy. While Seagrave’s reports in the local newspaper were not as numerous as those in the astronomical journals, they often explored astronomical topics not submitted to the journals. I uncovered 188 articles submitted by and reported on Seagrave during my research.

The process to download them will take a lot of time, but as I proceed I will post the PDF’s on our Google Drive in chronological order from earliest (1878) to latest (1934).

Related Topics

Frank Evans Seagrave (1860-1934)