Earth, sky and prayer in harmony: aspects of the interesting life of Father Edward Pigot, SJ, BA, MB, BCh (1858-1929), Part 2 (1911-1929)

Abstract

Edward Francis Pigot (1858-1929) spent the last twenty-four years of his life as Director of the Riverview Observatory of the Jesuit St Ignatius ‘Riverview’ College, Sydney. The onset of World War I caused the cancellation of the proposed International Seismological Congress in St Petersburg, Russia, in 1914. But he received plans of Galitsin's seismograph and one was later built in Sydney and installed at Riverview Observatory. From 1914, in addition to seismology Pigot participated in studies of earth deformation, earth tides, Foucault pendulums and solar radiation. In 1919, in preparation for astronomical work at Riverview, Pigot visited major US observatories. His support of US astronomers in the 1922 solar eclipse observations played a part in the attempts to confirm Einstein's Theory of Relativity.