HALL, Asaph, American astronomer: b. Goshen, Litchfield County, Conn., 15 Oct. 1829; d. Annapolis, Md., 22 Nov. 1907. After private study he attended Central College, McGraw ville, N. Y., in 1854-55 was for a term a pupil of Francis Brunnow at the University of Mich igan, taught at Shalersville, Ohio, and later was appointed assistant to Bond in the Harvard Observatory. He became assistant in the Naval Observatory at Washington in 1862, and in 1863 professor of mathematics in the navy, with rela tive rank of captain. He continued in the government service until 1891, when he was retired on account of age, with relative rank of captain. While at the Naval Observatory, he was dispatched on several expeditions, includ ing those for observation of solar eclipses to Bering Strait in 1869, to Sicily in 1870 and to Colorado in 1878. He was also in charge of the American party sent to observe the transit of Venus at Vladivo€tock, Siberia, in 1874, and chief astronomer of the expedition to San Antonio, Tex.; for the transit of 1882. Among his many the most important is that of the moons of Mars (August 1877), which he named Deimos and Phobos, and whose orbits he calculated. Among his later work is a valuable study of double stars. In 1895-1901 he
was professor of astronomy at Harvard. He received the Lalande prize of the French Acad emy of Sciences in 1878, its Arago medal in 1895, and the gold medal of the Royal Astro nomical. Society in 1879. In 1902 he was presi dent of the American Association for the Ad vancement of Science.
HALL, 'Basil, British naval officer and writer: b. Edinburgh, 31 Dec. 1788; d. Ports mouth, England, 11 Sept. 1844. He entered the navy in 1802, and accompanied Lord Amherst's expedition to China in 1815, a trip which sup plied him with the materials of his first work, 'A Voyage of Discovery to the West Coast of Corea, and the great Loo Choo Island in the Japan Sea.' This work, first published in 1818, had a very extensive circulation. In 1827 he made a tour in Canada and the United States, and published his 'Travels in North America' (1829), a work which excited much adverse criticism in the United States by reason of its outspoken and somewhat supercilious comments and observations. 'Fragments of Voyages and Travels' appeared in 1831-33, and was followed by 'Schloss Hainfield or a Winter in Styria' and 'Patchwork' (1841).