His Contribution to Astronomy: The Discovery Of Pluto Holder of World Cycling Records Charged The death of Professor William Henry Pickering, at Mandeville, Jamaica, in his eightieth year, robs the United States of one of her greatest astronomers. A native of Boston (Mass), he came of a distinguished New England family, His brother, Edward Charles Pickering, his senior by nearly twelve years, who died in 1919, was for rany years Professor of Astronomy at Harvard and director of the world-famous Harvard College Observatory. William Henry Pickering graduated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1879. Before this date he had followed in his elder brother's footsteps and had chosen astronomy as his life-work, and in 1887 he was appointed assistant to his brother at Harv observatory and three years later Assistant Professor: of Astronom; states the "Manchester Guardian."
E. C, Pickerings chief work was done in the field of what is called the "new astronomy," or astrophysics. The younger brother gave his atten-ion chiefly to the older or observational side of the science, concentrating chiefly on the moon and the planets. The Harvard Observatory was at this time searching for a site for an observing station in the southern hemisphere, and 1890 W. H. Pickering established one at Arequipa, on the slope of the Andes in Peru. Here his effective career as an astronomer may be said to have begun.
In 1892 the planet Mars was very favourably placed for observation, especially in southern latitudes, and Pickering working at Arequipa, made two discoveries of the first importance. Fifteei years earlier pacelli, the famous Italian 95 nomer, had detected the curious network of fine lines intersecting the reddish-ochro portions of the planet ard known as canals. Pickering not only confirmed the existence of the canals but discovered at their junctions round dark spots to wi he gave the name of "lakes," harmony with the generally accepted opinion that dark spots on Mars represented water. His other discovery that canals existed in the darker areas, however, discredited the theory that these were seas and suggested to him that they were tracts of vegetation, a surmise which was finally confirmed by the long-continued observations of the late Dr. Percival Lowell.
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