Denison Olmsted - Biography

Biography

In 1813, he graduated from Yale University, where he acted as college tutor from 1815 to 1817. In the latter year, he was appointed to the chair of chemistry, mineralogy and geology in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Here he proposed and executed the first state geological survey that was ever attempted in the United States, publishing reports of his work in 1824 and 1825. Although the state authorized the execution of the survey, Olmsted received no compensation for his services.

In 1825, he became professor of mathematics and physics at Yale. He published an elaborate theory of hail-stones in 1830, which caused much discussion, but finally received the general approbation of meteorologists. The shower of shooting stars that fell in November 1833 attracted his attention, and he studied their history and behavior until he was able satisfactorily to demonstrate their cosmical origin. Olmsted and his associate, Elias Loomis, were in 1835 the first American investigators to observe the Halley's Comet.

In 1836, his Yale professorship was divided, and he retained that of astronomy and natural philosophy, the department of mathematics being assigned to Anthony D. Stanley. For several years, he carried on a series of observations of the aurora borealis.

Olmsted possessed considerable mechanical talent, which he used in promoting and perfecting the inventions of others, but while he himself frequently invented articles of convenience and comfort, such as the Olmsted stove, he seldom secured his rights by patents.

He died at New Haven, Connecticut, on the 13 May 1859.