b. March 7, 1837 and d. November 20, 1882

American physicist. He made a specialty of celestial photography. His most celebrated photograph is that of the moon, and it probably gives the best representation of its surface thus made. In 1873 the finest photograph of the diffraction spectrum ever made was taken by him. Some experiments led him to assume the presence of oxygen in the sun, and in July, 1877, he announced “The Discovery of Oxygen in the Sun by Photographyy and a New Theory of the Solar Spectrum.” This investigation culminated in perhaps the most original discovery ever made in physical science by an American.

 Tell me, ye splendid orbs! as from your throne
 Ye mark the rolling provinces that own
 Your sway, what beings fill those bright abodes?
 How formed, how gifted? What their powers, their state,
 Their happiness, their wisdom? Do they bear
 The stamp of human nature? Or has God
 Peopled those purer realms with lovelier forms
 And more celestial minds? Does Innocence
 Still wear her native and untainted bloom?
 Speak, speak! the mysteries of those living worlds
 Unfold! No language? Everlasting light
 And everlasting silence? Yet the eye
 May read and understand. The hand of God
 Has written legibly what man may know,
 The Glory of the Maker. —Address to the Heavenly Bodies: Henry Ware, Jr.

Henry Ware, Jr.