Phil Trans. (Abridgement Series, 1809) vol.2 (for 1672-83), pp.326-328: (Biographical footnote, pp.326-328 in vol.2, accompanying the abridgement of a paper by Edmund Halley.)
Dr. Edmund Halley, a celebrated mathematician and astronomer, as well as one of the most eminent and useful members of the Royal Society, was born in London, An. 1656, and educated at St. Paul's School there; from whence he was sent 1673 to Queen's College, Oxford, where he chiefly applied himself to mathematics and astronomy, in which he soon distinguished himself in a remarkable manner, being only in his 19th year when he produced the above paper in the Philosophical Transactions, on the aphelia and eccentricity of the planets.
He made a great number of accurate observations in astronomy; and the forming in that way an entire new catalogue of all the stars was a favourite object; but finding that project already occupied by Hevelius and Flamsteed, he formed the design of completing their scheme, by the addition of the stars about the south pole, which could not be seen by those astronomers in the latitude of Dantzic or Greenwich. For this purpose, he left the university before he had taken any degree, and sailed for the island of St. Helena in 1676, when he was only 20 years of age. Here, with great diligence he soon completed his catalogue of those stars, with which he returned to England the latter end of l678, when the Royal Society immediately elected him one of their members, and the king (Charles 2d) gave him a mandamus to the university of Oxford, for the degree of A.M.
In 1679 he went to Dantzic, at the request of the Royal Society to endeavour to adjust a dispute between M. Hevelius and Mr. Hook, concerning the preference between plain and telescopic sights in astronomical instruments; from whence he returned in about two months.
In 168O he set out on a tour through France and Italy, to establish a friendly communication among the astronomers of Europe. In Paris he completed his observations on the great comet of that year, which he had before seen in England.
He returned to England in 1681, and married a lady, with whom he lived happily for 55 years after.
In l683 he published his "Theory of the Variation of the Magnetical Compass"; in which he supposes the whole globe of the earth to be one great magnet, having four magnetical poles or points of attraction, &c. The same year also he entered on a new method of finding the longitude, by an accurate observation of the moon's motion.
In the beginning of 1684, contemplating Kepler's laws of the periods and distances of the planets, he concluded that the centripetal force must decrease in proportion to the square of the distance reciprocally. He found himself however unable to make it out in any geometrical way; and therefore, after applying in vain for assistance to Mr. Hook and Sir Christopher Wren, he repaired to Cambridge to Mr. Newton, who fully supplied him with what he so ardently sought. But Halley having now found an immense treasure in Newton, could not rest till he had prevailed with the owner to enrich the public with it; and to this interview the world is in some measure indebted for the immortal Principia of Newton. That great work was published in 1686; and Halley, who had the whole care of the impression, prefixed to it a discourse of his own, giving a general account of the astronomical part of the work and also an elegant copy of verses in Latin.
In 1687 he undertook to explain the reason why the Mediterranean Sea never rises higher, though there is no visible discharge of the prodigious quantity of water that runs into it from nine large rivers, besides many small ones, and the constant setting in of the current at the mouth of the Straits; which he accounted for by the great quantity of waters raised from its surface by evaporation, which he showed by a calculation was fully adequate to the purpose.