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firm resolution. It was often expressed to the writer of this memoir, who especially remembers one occasion, when both were standing on the spot now occupied by the Observatory, after walking over the grounds to look for a site. "I am determined," said Mr. Bishop, "that this Observatory shall do something." The known solar system at that time consisted of eleven planets. Little did either party to the conversation think that the duplication of this number was part of the reward in store for Mr. Bishop's energetic and single-minded resolution to be of use.

Every particular relating to the Observatory will be found. in Mr. Bishop's publication, Astronomical Observations during the years 1839-51. It is not necessary for us here to describe Mr. Hind's ten planets, that of Mr. Marth, the star in Ophiuchus, the variable stars, the new nebulæ, the valuable doublestar observations commenced by Mr. Dawes, &c. The ecliptic charts must be mentioned: seventeen are engraved, and it is hoped that the difficulties in the way of the completion

are now overcome.

The South Villa Observatory is connected with a succession of excellent astronomers. We need only mention the names of Mr. Dawes and Mr. Hind. Since his appointment to the Nautical Almanac, Mr. Hind has taken a general superintendence, the actual observers being in succession Mr. Norman Pogson, Dr. Vogel, Mr. Marth, and Mr. Talmage. Mr. Pogson commenced in this Observatory the career which has produced much and promises more: and this was always a source of high gratification to Mr. Bishop.

Mr. Bishop was elected Fellow of this Society in 1830. He was successively Secretary, Treasurer, and President. It will always be matter of regret that he was never once able to take the chair in the last capacity: the final prostration of strength which accompanied-we may almost say, constituted -his last illness, was nearly simultaneous with his election as President in February 1857. He continued in a state of fluctuating debility, without any loss of mind, until June 14, 1861, when he died without pain.

We cannot here undertake to dwell at length upon the characteristics of this good friend of our Society, and most active, though quiet, promoter of its cause. Those who were on terms of intimacy with him will never forget the excellencies of his private character. Our concern is with the manner in which he encouraged and promoted Astronomy. In 1848, speaking on the award of our Astronomical testimonials, Sir J. Herschel observed that "it does not fall to the lot of every private observatory to have added two planets to our list." This was said at a time when the career of discovery of small planets was in its infancy. We may note that on the first opening of this path the energies of the South Villa Observatory were turned at once upon it; and the success which followed was a very great stimulus to the exertions of others. We have much satisfaction in adding that this institution is not to become extinct. It is the intention of Mr. George Bishop the younger to remove the instruments and the dome to his residence at Twickenham, and to continue the course of observation so brilliantly commenced in the Regent's Park.

Sir WILLIAM CUBITT was born at Dilham, in Norfolk, in 1785. As an engineer, his career will be recorded in other publications. He became a member of our Society, as other engineers have done, attracted towards astronomy by its connexion with mechanical adaptation. He was a good transit observer, and he constructed Mr. Cooper's telescope tube. The inventor of the self-acting windmill-sail, the constructor of the great landing-stage at Liverpool, the executive engineer of the railway from London to Dover, the superintendent of the construction of the Crystal Palace of 1851, is not likely to be

106, 107

forgotten in his line. The host of minor undertakings which he directed is past all enumeration; and it must not be forgotten that he deserves the thanks of every honest man as the inventor of the treadmill.

Sir William Cubitt was the son of a miller, and became a millwright after being apprenticed to a joiner. He has, accordingly, been represented as having risen in the face of every disadvantage; but this was not the fact, though easily credible of such a man. The apprenticeship was probably considered as an additional introduction to his intended career, he having already had much experience of the special working of a mill in his father's business.

Mr. Bidder states that his success was in a great degree to be ascribed to the soundness of his early mechanical experience, which he never failed to impress upon all the younger members of his profession. He died in October last.

In 1839

THOMAS FLOWER ELLIS was born December 5, 1796, and died April 5, 1861. He was educated at Cambridge, where his career in classics was distinguished, and he gained a fellowship at Trinity College in 1819, which he vacated by marriage in 1820. He was called to the bar in 1824, and continued in practice till his death, being for many years one of the reporters of the Court of Queen's Bench. he was made Recorder of Leeds, and Attorney-General for the Duchy of Lancaster. He was one of our earliest members, having been elected in May, 1820. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1847, and was also a member of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, the Philological Society, &c. On the Northern Circuit he made the acquaintance of the late Lord Macaulay, with whom he contracted a warm friendship. Lord Macaulay made him his executor, and in this capacity he edited the posthumous works of his distinguished friend.

Mr. Ellis was one of a class which is more numerous in England than in any other country-the class of persons who carry into professional life what would on the Continent be a professorial knowledge of literature or science, and make it. the duty of their leisure to apply it to the benefit of others. He was for many years a hardworking member of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, which he took up from the commencement with the feeling of personal responsibility for what was published by that corporation. In various other ways he was steadily applying himself to utilities of the same kind. In his career at the bar he also occupied a post of importance, to which no public recognition is attached. The reporters of our courts of law, on whom the judges mainly depend, not only for precedents, but for the arguments on which they are founded, are themselves unknown to the courts whose proceedings they record, and belong rather to the publishers who undertake the volumes of reports than to the great system which lives and grows by their publications. But we believe we may say that the judges themselves are not more free from all impeachment than their reporters.

Mr. Ellis was attached both to literature and to science, but his tastes were of a very mathematical cast. His principle, throughout life, was the promotion of knowledge; and in this field he worked from the time when he joined our Society in its infancy to the end of his useful life. None but those who were either his friends or colleagues were cognisant of his career.

The Council regret that his pursuits of necessity severed him from active participation in the meetings of our Society; and they feel that they have lost a member whose course of life was a continual credit to every Society whose designation he attached to his name, and to ours from its very

commencement.

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The Council regret that they cannot procure an account of Dr. FITTON. This zealous geologist had been a Fellow of the Society since 1825, and, though not immediately connected with astronomy, often attended our meetings. Almost to the last he was seen among us on occasions when important subjects were agitated.

THOMAS IGNATIUS MARIA FORSTER was born in Threadneedle Street, November 9, 1789. He was of an ancient Border family, which was confiscated in the Rebellion of 1715. His father, who was in business, was a zealous botanist, and published a Flora Tunbrigiensis in 1812. His uncle, B. Meggot Forster, was known by many papers on physics and botany; and another uncle, Edward, a partner in the house of Lubbock and Co., was also known as a botanist. Thomas Forster has left an account of his own life, published in French at Brussels in 1836: he speaks in detail of the botanical tendency of his family, and says that as soon as the ledger was shut the hortus siccus was open. He himself began, at the age of sixteen, a Liber Rerum Naturalium, and a Journal of the Weather, which he continued till his death.

At the age of seventeen he became acquainted with Spurzheim, whose system he adopted. It was Mr. Forster who gave the name of Phrenology to what was till then called Craniology, in a tract entitled Sketch of the Phrenology of Gall and Spurzheim, London, 8vo, 1816. Spurzheim told him that he had a head well organised for science, but with too much ideality to allow it to be used with effect.

Mr. Forster was a member of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and took the degree of M. B. in 1819. In 1817 he married a daughter of Colonel Beaufoy, a well-known Fellow of this Society, which he himself joined in 1824. He led a wandering life till about 1834, when he settled in Belgium, where he remained till his death, either at Brussels or at Bruges. He spoke and wrote various languages with facility. His detached works are beyond all enumeration: most of them are on atmospherical and meteorological phenomena, not forgetting an account of a balloon-ascent which he made in 1831. One of his earliest works, On the Brumal Retreat of the Swallows, published under the name of Philocheledon, reached a sixth edition in 1817.

When M. Quetelet showed him some accounts of the shooting stars of August 10, he was greatly astonished; but a few days afterwards he pointed out to M. Quetelet that he had long before announced the phenomenon as periodic, in his own Atmospherical Calendar, which he had entirely forgotten. This was made known at the time.

Mr. Forster was an upright and amiable man, with many peculiarities of mind and habit; a scholar and a linguist of very wide reading, and zealously attached to observation of natural phenomena.

Sir WILLIAM KEITH MURRAY, Bart., was born at Ochtertyre, in Perthshire, on the 19th of July, 1801. Educated at Harrow and Sandhurst, he entered the army in 1821, joining the 42d Highlanders, where he attained the rank of captain. In 1830 he left that celebrated corps, and joined the Perthshire Militia as lieutenant-colonel. More recently still, on the rise of the Volunteer movement, he was appointed colonel of the Perthshire Rifle Volunteers, and engaged both enthusiastically and laboriously in those new duties until within a few weeks of his death.

At Sandhurst he had been distinguished for proficiency in military sketching and outline drawing-a talent which he employed abundantly and to good purpose in after-life-publishing, in 1832, a volume of his original sketches of Scottish and Highland scenery, taken in that manner.

109, 110 He was also an accomplished musician, and was most skilful at the turning-lathe. His taste for telescopic observing only manifested itself later in life; but having, in 1850, erected at Stonehaven a small equatoreal-room of 15 feet in diameter, on the plan described by Sir John Herschel in his work on the Southern Heavens as observed at the Cape of Good Hope, he commenced a larger Observatory in 1853, at his family seat of Ochtertyre, and published a description of it, with plates, in 1859.

The most noteworthy particular of the building was, perhaps, the mounting of the great dome, 18 feet in diameter, on the rims of large (2-foot) wheels, the axes of which rested on fixed bearings in the wall; proving that this was both an economical and effective practical method of securing an easily revolving roof. Of the instruments, the chief one was an equatoreally-mounted telescope, of 9 inches aperture, by Cooke and Sons, of York. The optical qualities of this object-glass he was most unwearied in testing on every known difficult object in the heavens, month after month, and year after year, until he had put beyond all doubt the quality of Mr. Cooke's optical work.

With all this energy and determination of purpose, Sir William preserved remarkable modesty amongst learned men, and ever showed the most kind attention to the wishes of his neighbours and the educational interests of his tenantry and the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns and villages. Hence his own advance in science was much impeded by the time he devoted to others; and an interesting specialty of his Observatory always was, the large number of very respectable telescopes which he had fitted up for the use of all who chose to profit by them. His popular lectures in the neighbourhood were frequent and well attended, illustrated generally with great skill by his own mechanical or optical contrivances. He was, in short, never weary of well-doing according to his position in life, and was one of those men occasionally met with in the world who are gifted with almost superhuman activity, seldom requiring more than three or four hours' sleep, and busily engaged in working or superintending the work of others through the remainder of the day.

Sir William was twice married-first, in 1833, to the only daughter of Sir Alexander Keith, of Ravelstone and Dunottar, in whose right he assumed the name of Keith; and secondly, on the death of this lady, after having had by her eight sons and three daughters, to Lady Adelaide Hastings, youngest daughter of the first Marquis of Hastings. Lady Adelaide died in December, 1859; and Sir William Keith Murray, who never fully recovered from the effect of her loss, was carried off by an attack of typhus fever in October 1861.

General Sir CHARLES WILLIAM PASLEY, K.C.B. and D.C.L., died at his house at Norfolk Crescent, Hyde Park, on the 19th of last April, in his eighty-first year, having been a member of this Society during twenty-seven years. He was also a Fellow of the Royal, the Geological, the Geographical, and the Statistical Societies, being everywhere active in the cause of practical science.

This distinguished officer was born at Eskdale - Muir, Dumfries, on the 8th of September, 1780, and received the rudiments of his education in the High School at Edinburgh. He was appointed a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in his seventeenth year, from whence he was transferred to the Royal Engineers, where he became a captain in 1807, a lieutenant-colonel in 1814, and a colonel in 1831. He was promoted to the rank of major-general in 1840, lieutenantgeneral in 1851, and general in 1860.

The early years of Pasley's career in the army were marked with activity and incident. In 1799 he was stationed in Minorca, where he remained three years, and was then sent

IIC, III

to Malta, in which island he rendered himself very serviceable, insomuch that General Villettes selected him to go with a confidential communication to Admiral Lord Nelson: and here his professional talent was evinced in a scheme for protecting the exposed heights of Corradino by means of four strongly fortified trapezium redoubts, the plan of which is still preserved among the muniments of that island. He served at the defence of Gaeta in 1805, under the Prince of Hesse Philipstadt; at the battle of Maida with Sir John Stuart; and at the siege of Copenhagen, under Lord Cathcart, in 1807. In the following year he was sent to the Peninsula, where he was in several sharp skirmishes, as extra aide-de-camp to Sir David Baird; and at the battle of Corunna he acted in the same capacity to the commander-in-chief, Sir John Moore. Captain Pasley next served in Walcheren, where, on the 9th of August, 1809, he received a bayonet-wound through the thigh, and a musketshot which injured the spine, in leading a storming party to a French advanced work on the dyke in front of the citadel of Flushing.

In these incessant services it was the good fortune of Captain Pasley to win the approbation of all the generals under whom he was placed, and by all of whom he was employed on special duties and trusty missions. But his personal activity for the field having been restricted in consequence of the severe wounds which he had received, Lord Mulgrave appointed him Director of the Royal Engineer Establishment for Field Instruction at Chatham, which important post he ably held from the year 1812 till the end of 1841. Nor in this Society should it be forgotten that he there founded an efficient Observatory for initiating young officers into practical astronomy, and which was also supplied with such portable instruments as a military engineer ought to be acquainted with. Shortly after quitting Chatham, he was nominated an Inspector of Railroads.

Meanwhile Colonel Pasley had directed his energetic mind to the removal of wrecks under water by means of voltaic explosions of gunpowder; and in 1838 he blew to pieces the sunken hulls of two merchantmen in Gravesend Reach, so that their fragments were easily weighed. So fortunate an operation led to the gigantic enterprise of clearing the road of Spithead from that well-known incumbrance, the Royal George, a first-rate man-of-war, which had been lying at the bottom more than half a century. This arduous undertaking was most successfully executed; and by the public sale of the guns, copper, timber, and débris which were fished up, this very important anchorage was cleared without any expense to the country.

We must mention, in conclusion, that Sir Charles Pasley was an author of considerable note. In 1810, a time of great alarm, he published a very remarkable volume on the Military Policy of Great Britain. It was much read, and is a valuable book, whether considered as to its enlarged political views, its fair and candid reasonings, or its spirited patriotism—a meed which is granted even by those who cannot concur in all its doctrines. He also wrote A Course of Elementary Fortification, in 2 vols.; Practical Geometry and Plan-Drawing; Improvement of English Weights and Measures; and Rules for undertaking the Operations of a Siege.

For more than half his life Sir C. Pasley strongly advocated the introduction of decimal coins, weights, and measures never holding with those who would introduce the French units into this country, but desiring the complete introduction of the decimal principle of division. Of this proposal he was one of the earliest supporters.

WILLIAM WILSON was born in Spitalfields in the year 1768. His career affords a striking example of the effect of self-culture in overcoming the disadvantages of a very limited

III, 112 education and want of position. When a mere child, he was employed by a weaver as what was then called a draw-boy. He was afterwards apprenticed to a chair-maker, and followed that calling for a time; but having a strong natural bias towards scientific pursuits, he devoted his leisure to the acquirement of that kind of knowledge, and by industry and perseverance succeeded in raising himself far above his original position.

In 1796 he joined the Mathematical Society of Spitalfields, a Society which was established in 1717 for the purpose of mutual instruction in the mathematics and the promotion of general science. Here he soon distinguished himself, for the Society having, in 1795, removed to convenient premises in Crispin Street, it was shortly after proposed that a course of elementary lectures on the various branches of natural and experimental philosophy should be annually delivered, to which the public should be admitted at moderate cost. Mr. Wilson, in co-operation with Mr. Joseph Stevens, the Engineer to the East London Waterworks, rendered most effective assistance in carrying out this scheme. The first of these courses was delivered in 1798, and they were continued for nearly thirty years, Mr. Wilson taking an active part in their delivery during the whole of that time.

He was for many years Assistant to Mr. William Allen, Lecturer on Chemistry at Guy's Hospital. When, in 1825, his services were no longer required by that gentleman, having but slender means of support, the Committee of the Mathematical Society, in consideration of the eminent services rendered by him to the Society for so many years, gave him the entire benefit of the course of lectures for that season. Mr. Wilson, consequently, delivered the whole course, being a series extending over about twenty consecutive weeks; the writer of this notice officiating as his Assistant.

He was afterwards employed as Superintendent of the workmen of the Gasworks at Haggerstone; and when, after many years' services, the infirmities of age compelled him to retire from active business, a competent annuity from that Company afforded him adequate support for the remainder of his life.

Although entirely self-taught, Mr. Wilson's attainments were of no common order. He was not only well versed in the mathematical principles of natural and experimental philosophy, in illustration of which he, in conjunction with his friend Mr. Stevens, constructed a great variety of ingenious apparatus, admirably adapted to explain and demonstrate those principles to an audience, but he was an excellent chemist, as may be seen by a reference to an important series of experiments on the explosive compound of chlorine and nitrogen, then newly discovered, which in the year 1813 he undertook, in conjunction with Messrs. R. Porrett and Rupert Kirk, an account of which is published in the thirty-fourth volume of Nicholson's Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts. He was also a botanist and mineralogist, and formed a large collection of objects for the microscope, mounted with his own hands. In short, there was scarcely any portion of the science of his day to which he had not applied himself with success. He was much and deservedly respected by the members of the Mathematical Society, as he was at all times ready to communicate any information in his power to an inquirer, and endeavoured to render such information as intelligible as possible. For many years he was the senior member of that Society, but never filled the office of President. He became a Fellow of this Society when the junction of the Mathematical Society with it took place in 1845. He died in January, 1861, in his ninety-third year.

PIERRE DAUSSY was born at Paris, October 8, 1792; his father was what he afterwards became, Ingénieur Hydrographe.

While engaged in the school of hydrography, he studied astronomy in theory and practice at the observatory of the Ecole Militaire, under Burckhardt. From 1810 to 1814 his time was mostly devoted to astronomy. His occultations were published in Zach's Correspondance. He calculated the orbits of the second comets of 1814 and of 1737. In 1813 he presented to the Institute a memoir on the perturbations of Vesta, which gained the Lalande medal. A second and more extensive memoir on the same subject was published by the Bureau des Longitudes in the Connaissance des Temps for 1818; and tables founded on the elements therein contained were published in the same work for 1820.

From 1816 to 1826 Daussy was employed in triangulations which extended along the coast from Brost to Bayonne, thus joining the whole coast to the great triangulation. Puissant spoke in high terms of the execution of this work, and states that its agreements with the larger triangulation show the two to be parts of one whole. The precis of the whole was published in 1829, at the end of the Exposé des Travaux, &c., of M. Beautems-Beaupré. In 1829 he was employed in the connexion of the Channel Islands with the coast near St. Malo, at which time he also paid special attention to the local tides, on which he published two memoirs in the Connaissance des Temps for 1834 and 1838. His researches led him to the discovery, since verified by others, of the variation of the mean level of the sea with the height of the barometer.

It is not our place to follow Daussy through the long train of purely geographical labours by which he bore his part, and no small one, in raising the French school of hydrography to a high pitch of reputation and of utility to the whole world. An excellent account of the whole, though short, will be found in the notice by M. de la Roquette, inserted in the 20th volume (4th series) of the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie. He died September 5, 1861. His personal character was of the highest, and he was respected accordingly. Of the various marks of consideration which he received, the one which is now best worth noting is, that he was President of the Geographical Society of Paris. He was of the Institute of the Legion of Honour, Astronome Adjoint of the Bureau des Longitudes,

&c.

Just as this Report was ready for the Meeting news arrived of the death of Jean Baptist Biot, the oldest Associate of the Society, and the last of the celebrated savans of what he himself called the first edition of the French Republic. M. Biot would have been 88 years old if he had lived two months longer; and to the last he was actively employed. In November, 1861, he completed an elaborate survey of Chinese Astronomy for the Journal des Savants. Biot was alive in the time of D'Alembert and Voltaire, with either of whom, as a child, he might have talked; thus, better than by dates, we gain a notion of the long period through which he lived. It is necessary to defer until next year all detail of the labours of this distinguished cultivator both of science and letters.

In the ordinary operations of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, very few changes have been introduced during the year 1861. The observations are of precisely the same character as before, and the reductions have been made to keep pace with the observations. The volume for 1860 has been very nearly passed through the press. The formation. of a catalogue, embracing the star-observations from 1854 to 1860, is vigorously progressing.

The Great Equatoreal has been principally employed in observations of Jupiter and Saturn. A connected series of drawings of these planets has been made. The instrument has also been employed in observations of Comet II., 1861. It has been known for several years that interruptions

115, 116

of communications by the Galvanic Telegraph occur, from time to time, produced by spontaneous galvanic currents passing through wires whose extremities are connected with the earth. Arrangements have now been made, and the works are in progress, for the self-registering of these earthcurrents at the Royal Observatory. A grant for this purpose has been made by the Admiralty, and the arrangements have been much facilitated by the liberality of the Directors of the South-Eastern Railway, along whose lines the wires are to be carried, and by assistance rendered, in several ways, by their indefatigable Superintendent of Telegraphs, C. V. Walker, Esq.

The observations of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, are printed to the end of 1859, and in the Meridian Department are being continued as usual, or, it is hoped, with more than usual accuracy, in consequence of the successful completion during the last year of a long series of experiments which have been carried on during many years with the view of removing some acknowledged defects from the sidereal clock-a most vital part of a meridian observatory.

The Astronomer's attention had long been called to the subject on account of the double evils,-1st, of minute changes of rate, dependent on small and rapid variations of temperature; and, 2d, of inaudibility of the seconds' ticks in the high winds of an exposed hill-top. Each of these difficulties has now been overcome with as much completeness as if the other had had no existence, although at first they appeared to require antagonistic applications; and the result is, that the timekeeping department of the old transit-clock has been confided, pure and simple, to a clock (that which was presented to the Observatory by the late Sir Thomas Brisbane) enclosed, at a distance from the transit-instrument in a closet, in a covered part of the Observatory, tending to equal temperature (in the manner of the position of the Normal Clock at the central Observatory of Pulkova); but the observing department of the same old transit-clock is now taken up by a different clock altogether, and one the whole mechanical arrangements of which are devoted to enabling the seconds to be seen and heard by the observer at both the transit-instrument and mural circle, as easily and powerfully as possible; while its rate of going is taken electrical charge of by the other, or the timekeeping clock in the dark closet. By means of a small tilthammer, which strikes at every second on the outside of the case of the observing-clock, the audibility of the seconds tick seems carried to the highest desirable point; and by Mr. Jones' (of Chester) method of electric controlling, the required action of galvanism has been attained with invariable certainty, and at the smallest current expense for electricity that can well be conceived, as is judged after the experience of about nine

months.

Almost simultaneously with the improvement of the sidereal-clock system of the Observatory, a considerable extension of its duties took place with regard to its mean-time arrangements; for the public of Edinburgh, no longer content with a visible signal of the true time daily, demanded an audible signal of it as well, in the shape of a cannon fired from the Castle of Edinburgh by electric influence from the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh; and having raised voluntary subscriptions to pay all expenses, except those incurred at the Observatory, they procured the necessary authorisation from Government to carry out the work. The mechanical arrangements have been carried out with much precision.

Amongst the extra duties of the Observatory, the reduc tion, for the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths, &c. in Scotland, of meteorological observations from fifty-five meteoro logical stations in the North, still goes on, and occupies much time.

116, 117

During the last severe winter and spring the health of the Astronomer and Assistants suffered so much, that the Board of Visitors was induced, during the summer, to take up the important subject of suitable accommodation for the observers, but were not able to come to any practical result at present. The official house of the Astronomer is not only at a considerable horizontal distance from the Observatory, but at a lower level by so much as two hundred and forty feet vertical: the labour of such a journey, by both night and day, and through all seasons of the year, is enough to sap the health of any one, especially when it is remembered to engage in what sort of sedentary computing occupation the chief part of the ascents are made.

At the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford, the arrears of the printing of the Observations have been lessened by the publication of the nineteenth volume of the Radcliffe Observations, and the reductions have been carried on with sufficient vigour to ensure the speedy publication of another volume, containing the Observations of 1859 and 1860. The printing of the Observations of 1859 is nearly completed.

Throughout the year 1861 the meridian observations were made as before with the transit instrument and meridian circle, the chief subject of observation being the completion of Mr. Johnson's Catalogue of Remarkable Objects. In the summer, however, of 1861, there was purchased, with the consent of the Radcliffe Trustees, the transit circle belonging to Mr. Carrington, which had been used with such good effect by him at Red Hill. Mr. Main himself superintended the mounting of it at Oxford on the same piers that were used at Red Hill, and the whole was successfully accomplished considerably before the end of the year. Actual observations were commenced with it at the beginning of the present year, the chief subject of observation being the stars visible there between the fifth and the seventh magnitudes. In addition, the Sun is observed, and the Moon till opposition, together with some of the large planets, and such of the minor planets as can be seen with the telescope, of which the diameter is 5 inches.

With the heliometer Mr. Main has been engaged with the observation of a catalogue of double stars, and has already observed considerably more than one hundred. Jupiter and Venus have been also well measured. A long series of observations of the Great Comet of 1861 was also made, and the results have been communicated to the Society, and are printed in the December Number of the Monthly Notices.

The Photographic Meteorology has been well kept up as in former years, but with a diminished staff since August last. The only assistants employed at the Observatory since that time are Mr. Quirling and Mr. Lucas; and it is due to the energy and zeal of those gentlemen to state, that so large an amount of work could not be done without the most incessant exertions on their part. The Observatory has, in addition, the advantage of Mr. L'uff's services as a computer; and these have been most valuable and useful.

It may be considered that the prospects of the Radcliffe Observatory for the future are encouraging. It is now adequately supplied with excellent modern instruments, which are employed effectively for useful purposes; and, though the staff of assistants is small, it will probably be found, by economy of labour, adequate to the carrying out the views of the Directors, and to the sustaining of the past reputation of the Observatory. We are sure, moreover, the Society will duly appreciate the enlightened liberality of the Trustees, in purchasing without hesitation the Carrington Transit-Circle, as soon as it was explained to them that the demands of science at the present time required the establishment of an instrument of that class.

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The Observatory of Cambridge is at this moment in the state which necessarily arises from a change of superintendence, and, to some extent, of system. Professor Challis discontinued residence at Michaelmas, and Professor Adams is on the point of commencing residence, having been in charge since Mr. Challis left. The interval has been employed in making some alterations which would, perhaps, hardly be thought worthy of mention, but both gentlemen speak so strongly of the improvement effected, that notice may be taken of them in illustration of the importance of little aids to convenience. The calculating-room had been intended to receive an instrument, and the slits in the sides and roof gave it that tendency to equality of temperature with the outer air which promotes observation more than calculation. The Superintendant's private room was also a thoroughfare.

By aid from the Sheepshanks' fund, Mr. Challis completed the reduction of all the meridian observations made under his care, and also made some progress in the final reduction of the equatoreal observations. The printing is about to be commenced. A long and good series of the conspicuous comet of July last was carried to nearly the end of the year: the publication awaits the determination of some of the comparison stars. The transit of Mercury and the Solar Eclipse were hidden by clouds.

Mr. Adams, without having settled details of plan, intends to take up some definite class of observations, of not too extensive a character for his staff, and to discuss the results: without binding himself to engage largely in the routine observations which are sufficiently attended to at Greenwich. This plan he takes to be most fitted to create and keep up in the University a spirit of astronomical inquiry, one of the chief objects for which the Observatory was founded.

The University Syndicate, after paying a well-merited compliment to the long and able services of Mr. Challis, rejoice that the Observatory has still the advantage of his official connexion with it as Plumian Professor. In this the Society will join; and the astronomical world will look forward to good results from the union of the efforts of Mr. Adams and Mr. Challis, with the power of obtaining subordinate labour which the Sheepshanks' fund is likely to add.

When the Astronomer is far removed from the society of his scientific colleagues, events of his domestic life may become legitimate objects of mention in our Report, in all cases of which the Fellows would desire to convey the expression of sympathy. The zealous Astronomer of the Cape of Good Hope will feel assured of the sincerity with which the Society expresses its regret at the death of Lady Maclear.

Encke's Comet was found at the Cape early in December. To use Sir T. Maclear's words," it comes up sharp to the predicted orbit." It was, however, too faint for good observation when the last letters were received.

The extensive alterations and improvements at the Liverpool Observatory are now completed, and Mr. Hartnup is again at work with the Equatoreal. The new arrangements for testing and rating chronometers are much admired by all who have seen them, and fully answer Mr. Hartnup's expectations. The results of the first trial of chronometers with the new arrangements have been published in the Horological Journal. Journal. The new room having been found too large for the normal clock to be heard distinctly in every part, another clock has been added and successfully controlled by Mr. Jones' method, so as to produce perfect coincidence of beat with the normal clock. This new clock has a dial, twelve inches diameter, and a seconds' hand only, the minute and hour hands not being required; it is controlled with the same current which is used for working the relays in connexion with clocks