Tag Archives: Alexis Caswell

“The pendulum of eternity”

“The vast cycles of change going on in the heavens seem, as it has been sublimely said, like the recurring beats of the pendulum of eternity.”

―William Augustus Norton, First Book of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, 1860.

Providence Union Station, 1847-1896.
Providence Union Station, 1847-1896. The Foucault pendulum was suspended within one of the towers at left.

When news of Léon Foucault’s demonstration of the Earth’s rotation reached the United States in 1851 there was great interest in repeating the experiment in Providence. Two members of the Brown faculty arranged for a public demonstration in the Providence railroad depot. Alexis Caswell was a professor of natural philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy. William A. Norton was professor of civil engineering and natural philosophy. The pendulum bob weighed a little less than 40 pounds and was suspended from the end of a wire 97 feet long. The report on this experiment was published in the Proceedings of the AAAS along with an account of the Harvard demonstration in the stairwell of Bunker-Hill Monument.

Continue reading “The pendulum of eternity”

The first weather station at Ladd Observatory

Ladd weather station
The first weather station as it looked in the late 1890s

Regular meteorological observations were made at Brown University by Alexis Caswell (1799-1877) who was Professor of mathematics, astronomy and natural philosophy. Caswell began recording these observations in 1831 and his “Meteorological Register; Providence, R.I.” was published in Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. Caswell kept these records until 1876; after that date the records were kept by the City Engineer.

Weather observations for Providence, RI continued at Ladd Observatory soon after the building was constructed in 1890. An instrument shelter was installed on the deck of the building next to the dome. These weather records were kept by Winslow Upton (1853-1914) who was Professor of astronomy and the first Director of the Observatory.

A modern automatic weather station is operated on the roof of Ladd Observatory today, just a short distance from the location of the original instrument shelter.