George Biddell Airy, astronomer royal of England, born at Alnwick, July 27, 1801. He was a fellow of St. John's college, Cambridge, and afterward of Trinity. He was appointed Plu-merian professor of astronomy at Cambridge in 1828, and annually published the results of his investigations at the observatory there (9 vols. 4to, 1829-'38). On the retirement of Mr. John Pond in 1835, he became astronomer royal, which office he continues to hold (1872). He is president of the astronomical society. and in 1871 was elected president of the royal society. He distinguished himself by the publication of the long-neglected observations at Greenwich of the moon and planets from 1750 to 1830. His labors are regarded as having opened a new epoch in planetary astronomy. He has acquired high reputation by his researches into the mode of simplifying the theory of planetary perturbation, by his contrivance of a new instrument for observing the moon off the meridian, and substituting for the old mural circle and transit instrument another of simple construction and of great utility. In 1854 he corrected certain erroneous impressions which prevailed touching the variations of the compass in ironclads. In 1859 his memorable researches on the motion of the solar system in space were first announced.

He prepared the formula and methods for conducting the survey of the Maine boundary between Canada and the United States. He observed eclipses of the sun at Turin (1842), at Gothenburg (1857), and in Spain (1860). His important contributions to astronomy, magnetism, meteorology, photography, and other sciences are contained in leading English cyclopaedias and in the annals of learned societies. In his "Essays on the Invasion of Britain by Julius CAesar" (London, 1865), Prof. Airy questions the accuracy of D'Anville's, Kennel's, and Halley's theories about the points of Caesar's sailing and landing; he regards the points of departure to have been so far from Calais as the mouth of the Somme, and the place of landing so far from Deal as Pe-vensey bay.