ERIC DOOLITTLE, 1869-1920

Abstract

Our sorrow over the death of a colleague or friend whose years have reached or exceeded the allotted three-score and ten is tempered by the reflection that he was given the opportunity to see the fulfilment of his plans for his life's work. In the case of Eric Doolittle, who died on September 21 of the present year, at the age of fiftyone, our sorrow has no such mitigation. Fruitful as his labors had been, we had every reason to expect that those of the coming decade or two would yield results of even greater value to astronomy, for it was known that he had in mind plans for a large program of work for whose execution he was specially fitted by his ability and experience. It is an irreparable loss that he was not permitted to live to carry out his plans. Born on July 26, 1869, Eric Doolittle lived practically his entire life in the atmosphere of an astronomical observatory; for his father, the late Professor C. L. Doolittle, was appointed professor of astronomy and mathematics at Lehigh University in 1875, and held that post until 1895, when he became professor of astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Flower Observatory. Eric received the degree of Civil Engineer from Lehigh University in 1 89 1 and after two years' experience as instructor in astronomy at that university and at the State University of Iowa, went to the University of Chicago for two years' graduate studies in astronomy. Here he proved his capacity as a student of theoretical astronomy and began the laborious researches which resulted in the publication, in 191 2, of his memoir on The Secular Variations of the Orbits of the Four Inner Planets. In 1896 he accepted the position of instructor in astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania and became his father's assistant at the newly founded Flower Observatory, taking full charge of the work with the excellent 18-inch refracting telescope. In 191 2 he succeeded his father as director of this observatory and as professor of astronomy in the university, the position he held at the time of his death.