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MAGISTER HIORTER, 723
99
a
Celsius17 of Upsal, and was born in 1701. He was a real mathe
matical genius, and under the instruction of his father and after
wards of Prof. Burman, sº he made rapid progress in mathematics,
and especially in astronomy. In 1728 he took the degree of master
of philosophy, and commenced lecturing on mathematics at Upsal in
1729 ; and on Burman’s death in 1730 he was appointed his successor.
He was thus called to a chair which had been successively occupied
by his grandfather on his father’s side, Magnus Celsius ; by his
grandfather on his mother’s side, Anders Spole, and by his uncle
Peter Elfvius;54 but as there was no observatory and no adequate
supply of astronomical instruments at Upsal, he undertook a long
journey abroad . In Nuremberg he stayed with Doppelmayr, and
published his “Observations on the Aurora Borealis” ( Observationes
luminis borealis), in which he declared himself opposed to the theory of
the aurora deriving its light from the zodiacal light. He afterwards
proceeded to Italy, where he corrected the meridian line which had been
drawn in the Carthusian Church at Rome by Bianchini and Maraldi.
Here he also occupied himself in measuring the intensity of light; he
also determined the real size of the old Roman foot. When he arrived
in Paris in 1734, Boguer was on the point of departing for Peru in
order to measure a degree in the neighbourhood of the equator.
Celsius proposed measuring a degree in the high northern latitudes
as well, and this proposal was soon after carried out in Lapland by
himself, Maupertius, and others. After his return to Upsal in 1738
he wrote a work on the meridian degree of Maupertius under the
title, De observationibus pro figura telluris determinanda in Gallia
habitis. He subsequently took observations after Horrebow’s method
on the latitude, and studied principally the theory of the satellites of
Jupiter. By his influence the observatory at Upsal was finished in
1740; but Celsius died there soon afterwards in 1744. Many of his
papers on meteorology and magnetism are contained in the Trans
actions of the Academy of Sciences of Stockholm . He originated
the centesimal scale of the thermometer, which is called after him .
NOTE 145 .
MAGISTER OLOF HIORTER .
Magister OlofHiorter, who, under the direction ofProfessor Celsius,
computed the declination of the needle for Upsal and Torneå according
to the principles laid down by Swedenborg in his Principia, (see
Document 260, p. 580,) was born in 1703. His attention was early
drawn to mathematics and astronomy. Under the patronage of Count
46*
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