Elias Colbert

Elias Colbert (April 23, 1829 - June 28, 1921) was a British American astronomer, journalist, educator, mathematician, linguist, professor at the University of Chicago, director of the Dearborn Observatory, and president of the Chicago Astronomical Society. His book, Star Studies: What We Know of the Universe Outside the Earth was an early, 19th century example of interest in the subject of life on Mars.

Selected works Scoriæ: Eulogy on Shakespeare (1864) Astronomy Without a Telescope (1869) Chicago and the Great Conflagration (1871) Star Studies: What We Know of the Universe Outside the Earth (1871) The Lunar Apsides (1885) Washington, Shakespeare and St. George (1893) The Earth Measured (1898)