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PH. D. COURSES.
Practical Astronomy, including a systematic training in making and
reducing astronomical observations; theory and use of the instruments of a
fixed observatory; methods of reducing observations; construction of star-catalogues.
Text-Books.—Doolittle's Practical Astronomy; Chauvenet's Spherical and Practical
Astronomy; various memoirs and volumes of observations in the Observatory Library.
Celestial Mechanics, with practice in numerical computations; general
laws of equilibrium and motion; formation and integration of the differential
equations of motion of a system of bodies subject to the laws of gravity.
Text-Book.—Tisserand's Mécanique Céleste.
A prescribed course in this School, to be agreed upon in a conference of
the professors interested, will be considered as the equivalent of the Graduate
Course in either Mathematics or Natural Philosophy for graduates in the
M. A. courses of these schools.
The Astronomical Observatory is situated upon an elevation known
as Mount Jefferson, which furnishes an unobstructed horizon. The principal
building is a rotunda, forty-five feet in diameter, and contains the great Clark
refractor of twenty-six inches aperture. The building and instrument are
the gift of Leander J. McCormick, Esq., of Chicago. The computing
rooms are adjoining, and contain clock, chronograph, etc., and a working
library. In a smaller building are a three-inch Fauth transit and a four-inch
Kahler equatorial.
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