After his generous father died in 1684, Halley began to feel the need for an increase in income. He accepted a salaried position as Clerk to the Royal Society and for a short time he was Deputy Comptroller of the Chester Mint. He was commissioned to survey and chart the tidal currents of the English Channel. In 1702 and 1703 he took part in two diplomatic missions to Vienna and the Dalmatian coast where ports were being fortified to protect British men-of-war in the Adriatic. Halley so impressed the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I that he gave the astronomer a diamond ring from his own finger and a letter of high commendation to take back to Queen Anne.

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Royalty also touched Halley’s life when Russia’s Tsar Peter the Great visited England and made a point of calling on the eminent scientist. The Tsar asked Halley questions on many subjects and was well satisfied with the answers he received. He looked upon the genial astronomer as a friend and the story still persists of the high-spirited Tsar trundling Halley through a hedge in a wheelbarrow.

In 1698 Halley began an Atlantic voyage as the naval officer commanding a man-of-war. This was a rather special ship, built expressly for the special expedition, victualled for 12 months and carrying a crew of 20 men. Captain Halley proved himself a competent seaman, noting the longitude and latitude of all ports visited and the variation in the compass in the South Atlantic. He did, however, find some of his crew uneasy and refractory. Returning to England, he dismissed his lieutenant, acquired several more seamen and again set sail for the South Atlantic. There were icebergs in the lonely southern waters, fog and cold temperatures to be endured. About 700 miles east of Brazil, Halley reached the tiny uninhabited volcanic island of Trinidad. Taking possession of the island in the name of the English Sovereign, he left a few goats, hogs, Guiney Hens I carried them from St Helena, and The Union Flag flying. Several times the scientist and crew were mistaken for pirates. On the Grand Banks of Newfoundland a fishing vessel from Maine fired four or five shots through the rigging.

His sea-faring experiences must have left their mark. Astronomer John Flamsteed, writing to mathematician Abraham Sharp in 1703, noted that Mr. Halley…now talks, swears, and drinks brandy like a sea-captain. Early in the next year Halley exchanged his captain’s uniform for the gown of a professor of geometry at Oxford. Continuing to be active in the Royal Society, any vestiges of the sea-captain did not prevent him from presenting papers on a great variety of subjects.

In 1716 two weeks after a young English nobleman, the Earl of Derwentwater, was beheaded for high treason, a brilliant display of northern lights was seen over England. The two events were popularly linked and the marvelous flares of colour, usually seen only in high northern latitudes, were called Lord Derwentwater’s Lights. We may not know Edmund Halley’s impression of the unlucky Jacobite lord but we do know that he searched for a scientific explanation for the display of northern lights. He speculated that the cause might be water vapour or magnetism, but he definitely didn’t subscribe to the notion of Lord Derwentwater’s supernatural influence.

When the eclipse of the sun occurred over southern England in 1715, Halley predicted the track of the shadow where there would be suddain darkness wherein Starrs will be visible. In the summer of 1716, Venus remained visible in daylight and the learned Professor Halley explained the phenomenon publically to prevent the Superstition of the unskillful Vulgar.

If a friend passed along a problem to Halley he could be confident that the scientist would use every means to arrive at a solution. Take, for example, the question posed by John Houghton, also a Fellow of the Royal Society: how can one arrive at a reasonable estimate of the total acreage of England and Wales considering the irregular shape of the land surface? Halley attacked the problem in an unconventional way. He found the most accurate map available, cut carefully around each bay and inlet until he held a paper outline of the land area of England and Wales. He weighed this map, the cut out a circle for the central part of England. Finding the acreage of a known circle would not be a difficult task. He weighed the paper circle and compared it with the weight of the full map. His estimate of the total acreage of England and Wales was amazingly close to today’s figure.

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