CO
I
THE REV. WILLIAM PEARSON, LL.D., F.R.S.
(1767-1847)
HISTORY
OF THE
ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
1820-1920
c*u ''>,
EDITED BY
J. L. E. DREYER, M.A., PH.D., D.Sc.
PRESIDENT 1923-
AND
H. H. TURNER, M.A., D.Sc., D.C.L., F.R.S.
PAST PRESIDENT
8AVILIAN PROFESSOR OF ASTRONOMY, OXFORD
WITH CHAPTERS BY THEM AND BY
R. A. SAMPSON, M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S.
PAST 1'RESIDBNT
ASTRONOMER ROYAL FOR SCOTLAND
THE LATE COLONEL E. H. GROVE-HILLS, C.M.G., D.Sc., F.R.S.
PAST PRESIDENT
H. F. NEWALL, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S.
PAST PRESIDENT
PROFESSOR OF ASTROPHYSICS, CAMBRIDGE
AND
H. P. HOLLIS, B.A.
FORMERLY ASSISTANT AT THE ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH
PUBLISHED BY THE
ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
BURLINGTON HOUSE, LONDON, W. i
AND SOLD BY
WHELDON & WESLEY, LIMITED
2, 3, & 4 ARTHUR STREET, NEW OXFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C. 2
1923
ffB
V/. I
PREFACE
THE idea of compiling this History was started some years before
the Centenary. A Committee was appointed to deal with the
matter, and it was decided to distribute the work among ten
Fellows of the Society, each being responsible for one decade.
It was hoped that by beginning thus early the different collaborators
would be able to collect materials in a leisurely manner. But the
best scheme has its drawbacks, and it is a familiar fact that having
plenty of time may result in being late after all. Moreover, in
some cases those who had undertaken a share found that their
hearts failed them, and it is due to the untiring assistance of
Dr. Dreyer^ who came to the rescue, that the scheme has been
finally carried out in a somewhat modified form. Not only has
Dr. Dreyer dealt in all with fifty years out of the hundred, but he
has acted as co-editor for the whole, and if I venture to sign my
name to this "preface as original editor, it is chiefly in order that
I may express more fully my grateful thanks to him for all that
he has done, which included the important but tiresome under-
taking of compiling the index.
The list of independent authors ultimately stands as follows :
1820-1830,
1830-1840,
1840-1850,
1850-1860,
1860-1870,
1870-1880,
1880-1920,
H. H. Turner .
J. L. E. Dreyer
R. A. Sampson
E. H. Grove-Hills
H. F. Newall .
H. P. Hollis .
J. L. E. Dreyer
pp.
1-49
50-81
82-109
110-128
129-166
167-211
212-249
It was almost inevitable that in spite of every desire to the
contrary some things should be overlooked until too late. One
or two points concerning the early years were caught in time to
add them on pages 48 and 49 ; but the later limit also brings its
difficulties. The century of which this is the history closed at a
time when the Society was again in full vigour and growth after
the difficult years of the great war, and some things which
occurred after the limiting date were the natural outcome of those
which preceded it. Thus it seems proper to mention, even though
only in a footnote, the generous donations prompted by the
deplorable effects of the war on our finances ; and the very sight
of this note (on p. 246) suggested (although too late for proper
treatment in that place) that the noble bequest of a library of
early mathematical and astronomical books, with 250 towards
the expenses of housing them, which we owe to the late Colonel
vi HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Grove-Hills, should not be ignored because it fell just outside our
limiting dates.
Colonel Grove-Hills was treasurer at the time when our centen-
ary was celebrated in 1922, and was actively engaged in rectifying
our finances ; his death a few months later was a real tragedy.
He is also one of the joint authors of this volume, and it seems in
every way appropriate to include his among the few portraits
in the volume.
As regards the other portraits, we are fortunate to have re-
covered one of Dr. Pearson by the kind help, first, of Admiral
Sir H. E. Purey Cust, and secondly, of the Rev. R. M. B. Bryant,
the present Rector of South Kilworth, who lent us a framed
portrait presented to the South Kilworth Reading Room in 1902,
by Col. W. Pearson, J.P., D.L., a nephew of our founder. A fine
portrait of Francis Baily has long hung in our Council Room,
so that his features are familiar to many of us, although those of
Dr. Pearson were hitherto unknown ; but a portrait of Baily
could not possibly be omitted from this volume. The portrait of
John Herschel is well-known as an engraving, but by the kindness
of the Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, Dr. R. F. Scott,
we are enabled to include a photograph, made directly from the
picture by Pickersgill which hangs in St. John's College. The steel
engravings of Adams and Airy have been very courteously supplied
by Messrs. Macmillan, and will be recognised as having originally
appeared in Nature. Reference is made on pages 27, 28 to the
tragic history of one of our Fellows, Waterston, whose greatness
was not recognised in his lifetime ; it seems appropriate to make
some poor amends by including him among those whose portraits
are given. For De Morgan, we look in vain among the Presidents
in the Meeting-Room : we have it on his son's authority that he
consistently declined the office on the ground that a President of
the R.A.S. should be " either an actual star-gazer or at least a
telescope-twiddler." His portrait is here reproduced from the
Memoir of him published by Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co.,
with their kind permission, and also that of Messrs. Speaight, Ltd.,
who now own the original negative taken by May all. There is an
old print of Sir Joseph Banks, dated 1789, the reproduction of
which was debated, because this sturdy opponent of our foundation
is shewn holding in his hand Russell's drawing of the moon ;
but the ultimate decision was in the negative. The other selections
require perhaps no explanation, though apology may be offered
for the inevitable defects of any limited choice among so ma <y
worthy figures.
H. H. TURNER.
UNIVERSITY OBSERVATORY, OXFORD,
1923 October,
CONTENTS
1820-1830, by H. H. TURNER .
1830-1840, by J. L. E. DREYER
1840-1850, by R. A. SAMPSON .
1850-1860, by E. H. GROVE-HILLS
1860-1870, by H. F. NEWALL .
1870-1880, by H. P. HOLLIS .
1880-1920, by J. L. E. DREYER
INDEX
PAGE
i
50
82
no
129
167
212
254
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Rev. W. PEARSON
Sir J. HERSCHEL
J. J. WATERSTON v .
Sir J. SOUTH . . <.
FRANCIS BAILY .
J. C. ADAMS . \ . . ' .
Rev. R. SHEEPSHANKS
A. DE MORGAN .
Sir W. HUGGINS
Adm. W. H. SMYTH .
Sir G. B. AIRY .
Colonel E. H. GROVE-HILLS
Frontispiece
to face p. 8
33 33 26
54
33 33 90
33 33 96
33 33 H8
140
152
202
,3 210
33 246
33 33
33 33
vii
HISTOKY OF THE
EOYAL ASTKONQMICAL SOCIETY
CHAPTER I
THE DECADE 1820-1830. (By H. H. TURNER)
WE are indebted to Sir * John^Herschel foivkeeping a diary which
begins almost providentially with the year l"82O,~an3Trom which
the Herschel family have kindly made the following extracts :
Sat., Jan. I. Dined with Peacock and Babbage at Provost
Goodall's at Eton, & met Col. Thackeray, Vice-Provost Roberts,
Capt. Roberts (R.N.), etc.
Sun., Jan. 2. Peacock and Babbage left Slough after spending
a few days here.
Wed., Jan. 12. Dine (sic) at the Freemason's Tavern to meet
Dr. Pearson & other gentlemen to consider of forming an Astro-
noimcal Society.
Sat., Jan. 15. To attend Committee of y e Astronomical at
Geol. Soc. Rooms at 10 o'clock.
Evening. Mr Lowry's to tea to meet Wollaston, Babbage,
Gompertz, Perkins, & Col. Fairman.
Mon., Jan. 17. Went to Dr. Pearson's, Sheen, near Richmond,
where I dined & spent the night. At night took Mars' diam r by
way of trying Dr. Pearson's Double image Micrometer.
Tues., Jan. 18. Spent morning at Dr. Pearson's. Babbage
came about i h . Read over & arranged address for circulation
with the notice of formation of y e Astronomical Soc. Dined &
returned with Dr. P. and Babbage to the meeting of the C tee in
the Evening.
Thurs., Jan. 20. Returned in the afternoon to Slough.
Mon., Jan. 24. Death of the Duke of Kent.
Wed., Jan. 26. Despatched letters concerning the Astronomical
Society (the Address & a Circular letter) to Catton, Peacock, &
Fallows.
Sat., Jan. 29. Death of the King.
* Knighthood was not conferred till 1831 (followed by Baronetcy in 1838),
but for simplicity the familiar name has been used throughout.
I
2 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
A few later extracts are deferred for use in other connections.
From the above we gather the important fact that the preliminary
meeting was held either before or after dinner at the Freemason's
Tavern on January 12. Many years later De Morgan rejoiced to
find other evidence of this dinner, which had become almost
legendary : the diary shows that it was a pleasant addition to the
formal business of the preliminary meeting, fully preserved for
us in the Minutes, which may now be given verbatim :
MINUTES OF THE GENERAL MEETINGS OF THE ASTRONOMICAL
SOCIETY OF LONDON
Wednesday, January 12, i82Op
On this day several gentlemen, whose names are hereafter
mentioned, met together by appointment, at the Freemason's
Tavern, Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, to take
into consideration the propriety and expediency of establishing
*J a Society for the encouragement and promotion of Astronomy.
The following are the names of the gentlemen present :
No. I. Charles Babbage, Esq., M.A., F.R.S.L. & E., No. 5 Devon-
shire Street, Portland Place.
2. Arthur Baily, Esq., No. 6 Gower Street.
3. Francis Baily, Esq., F.L.S., Gray's Inn.
4. Capt. Thomas Colby, of the Royal Engineers, LL.D.,
F.R.S.E., Tower.
5. Henry Thomas Colebrooke, Esq., F.R.S. & S.A., Albany,
Piccadilly.
6. Olinthus G. Gregory, LL.D., Woolwich.
7. Stephen Groombridge, Esq., F.R.S. , Blackheath.
8. John Fred. W. Herschel, Esq., M.A., F.R.S.L. & E., Slough.
9. Patrick Kelly, LL.D., Finsbury Square.
10. Daniel Moore, Esq., F.R.S., S.A., and L.S., Lincoln's Inn.
11. Rev. William Pearson, LL.D., F.R.S., East Sheen.
12. James South, Esq., 11 Blackman Street, Southwark.
13. Charles Stokes, Esq., F.S.A. & L.S., Gray's Inn.
14. Peter Slawinski, D.P. Proff. University, Wilna.
The following mutual agreement was then drawn up and signed
by all the gentlemen present, viz. :
" At a meeting held this twelfth day of January 1820, at
the Freemason's Tavern, London, to take into consideration
the advantages that are likely to result from the Lestablishnaejit-.
of a Society for the cultivation _of Astronomy, We, whose
names are hereunto subscribed, being fully aware of the utility
of such an institution, do hereby mutually agree to constitute
ourselves a Society, to be called the Astronomical Society of
London ; and to be guided, in our future proceedings, by such
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 3
rules and regulations as may be formed for such Society, in
the manner to be appointed at the present meeting for that
purpose."
Resolved unani
TTThat a Committee of jeight members be appointed to draw
ip such rules ancTregulations ; and that three be a quorum.
Resolved unanimously
t C. Babbage, Esq. ; F. Baily, Esq. ; Capt. T. Colby ;
JR. T. Colebrooke, Esq. ; Dr. Gregory ; J. F. W. Herschel, Esq. ;
/D. Moore, Esq. ; and Rev. Dr. Pearson be the Committee above
/^mentioned.
Resolved unanimously
3. That a general meeting of the members take place on Tuesday,
February the 8th, at the house of the Geological Society in Bedford
Street, Covent Garden, at 7 o'clock in the evening precisely ; to
take into consideration the rules and regulations which may be
then proposed by the Committee.
Resolved unanimously
4. That any person, recommended by one of the present members
of the Society, who may be desirous of joining the Society at, or
prior to, the above-mentioned general meeting, shall, on previously
signifying in writing his assent to these resolutions, or on authorising
a member by letter to signify the same on his behalf, be considered
a member thereof without ballot.
Resolved unanimously
5. That the Committee be authorised to draw up an Address,
explanatory of the motives and object of the Society ; and to
circulate it in such manner as they may think fit.
Resolved unanimously
6. That F. Baily, Esq., be Secretary pro tempore.
Memorandum. It was omitted to be stated, in its proper place,
that D. Moore, Esq., was unanimously called to the Chair.
FRANCIS BAILY, Secretary pro tern. DAN. MOORE, Chairman.
Returning to the Diary of Sir John Herschel, we see that the
first action of the infant Society was the preparation of an Address ,
and that it was undertaken by Herschel himself, possibly with the
help of Pearson and Babbage. The MS. was probably handed to
the Secretary, Francis Baily, on the evening of Wednesday, January
19, and on the following Saturday he was able to write announcing
that it was in type :
GRAY'S INN, Jan. 22, 1820.
DEAR SIR, I think you will say that the printer and myself
have managed admirably well in being able to decipher and arrange
the very rough copy which you left us. There was but one passage
which I could not exactly make out ; but as the meaning was evident,
I was at no loss to complete the sentence.
There is one liberty I have taken with it, which is the insertion
j HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
of that passage in page 5 which you had struck out of the MS.,
but which I thought was too excellent to be thus discarded. On
the whole I think the Address admirably adapted to its purpose,
and I have no doubt it = ^witn5e read with pleasure and profit by
every lover of Astronomy.
Tin- proof has luvn 1'mislu-d only I his morning, and I have
ordered 2 j 5o_copies to be struck off this afternoon, in order that they
may be dried to-morrow ; and, after lying in the press on Monday,
be ready for distribution on Tuesday. Had I waited for the return
of the enclosed proof, the whole of that time would have been lost ;
and I think it of material consequence to circulate them as soon as
possible. Some will be sent to Scotland, and there will be scarcely
time to receive an answer prior to the general meeting, if the printing
had been delayed.
However I have thought it better to send you the enclosed
copy, in order that you might inspect it prior to its publication :
so that, if it did not meet your entire approbation, it might be re-
printed, with any alterations you may think advisable. For my
own part (and I speak also the opinion of many of the members),
I think it cannot be mended.
I shall be obliged by an answer, as early as convenient, addressed
to me at the Stock Exchange ; and at the same time you will be good
enough to inform me, by what conveyance it would be most advisable
to forward such copies of the Address and of the Circular as you
may wish for distribution.
With my compts. to Sir William and Lady Herschel, believe
me, yours truly, D r Sir, FRANCIS BAILY.
5 o'clock. I have waited till the last moment, expecting the
printer to send me a copy of the Address ; but, being disappointed,
I have despatched this letter without it : to know whether you
would prefer seeing it before it is circulated ; or whether I shall
forward them as at first proposed ?
On the Monday, Baily was able to send a dozen copies of the
Address, but he probably did not get the approval for which he
hoped ; for though Sir John's reply has not been preserved, the
following sentences from a letter to Babbage dated 1820 February 2,
sufficiently indicate his views on the printing of the Address.
Baily made sad work of that scrawl of an address I left with
him it was, to be sure, in great measure my fault, but here and
there he has totally inverted the sense of it and made me say what
my soul abhors. However, it is the address of the whole Com-
mittee, and nonsense distributed among so many will lie lightly
on each. However, if you have any copies by you still undis-
tributed, do in pity strike out the word " not " in page 8 line 12 in
them before you send them abroad.
To identify the offending passage it is necessary to refer to a
copy of the octavo pamphlet in which the Address originally
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 5
appeared. It will serve a double purpose to quote the whole
sentence, italicising the word to be struck out.
One of the first great steps towards an accurate knowledge of
the construction of the heavens, is an acquaintance with the
individual objects they present ; in other words, the formation of
a complete catalogue of stars and other bodies, upon a scale in-
finitely more extensive than any yet undertaken ; and to be carried
down to the minutest objects, not visible in any but the very best
telescopes.
It is rather puzzling to find that it is impossible to strike out
the word not as directed if the sense of the passage is to be preserved.
The emendation adopted in Mem., 1, 4, is :
and that shall comprehend the most minute objects visible in good
astronomical telescopes.
The whole construction has, of course, been altered. Sir John's
complaint seems to have been a little hasty, for comparison of the
Address as fully revised in the Memoirs with the copy put through
the press by Baily, only reveals one serious alteration of the
sense. The original reads :
A well-made instrument will thus unavoidably acquire a reputa-
tion, not merely among a few eminently skilled observers as at
present, but throughout the astronomical world of Britain.
but the last two words have clearly got into the wrong place,
and in the revised version are restored to the other leg of the
contrast " a few eminently skilful observers in Britain as at
present, but throughout the whole astronomical world."
It is, however, interesting to see what did ultimately happen to
one sentence which Sir John had written, and then struck out in
MS., but which Baily nevertheless printed. When Sir John got
his dozen copies he again struck it out, and again Baily pleaded
for it.
I have ventured, however, to retain the passage in page 5
which you had a second time struck out ; it certainly is too im-
pressive to be lost, and so has thought everyone to whom the
passage has been read ; so that if we have done wrong, we must
all bear the blame equally. It is, however, transposed from its
former position to one where it was considered more apposite.
The transposition enables us to identify the passage, which is
as follows :
Yet it is possible that some bodies, of a nature altogether new,
and whose discovery may tend in future to disclose the most im-
portant secrets in the system of the universe, may be concealed
6 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
under the appearance of very minute single stars no way distin-
guishable from others of a less interesting character, but by the
test of careful and often repeated observations.
We may now declare the secondary purpose with which the
former passage was quoted, and which has prompted also the
relation of these details somewhat more fully than occasion perhaps
seemed to warrant. In recurring to these early days after the lapse
of a century, there can scarcely be a better motive than that of
realising what was in the minds of these pioneers, and seeing what
came of it. As one item alone in their programme, they jlidjiot
hesitate to announce it as their ambition to survey the whole sky
by co-operative endeavour down to the minutest star visible in
tHe^Best telescopes, and that with the laborious methods of the time t
Two-thirds of a century later, with the immensely powerful aid ""
of rjhotograpJiy- bt hand, their successors really embarked on this
project, but have found it far beyond their resources. The sky
has indeed been completely photographed, at Harvard and else-
where, but this is only one step on the way to the scrutiny of each
star " careful and often repeated." The question forces itself
on our attention whether our pioneers had really counted the cost ;
and we can only reply that, if they had not, they were only com-
mitting the same mistake which their successors, with far better
information, repeated in 1887. They then initiated the project
for the Astrographic Chart, which was to be completed in a dozen
years, though to-day, after nearly three times that period, it is
yet far from accomplishment. Of the enthusiasts who adopted so
great a programme in 1820, probably Sir John Herschel had the
best means of knowing what it involved ; and we may perhaps
read into his attempted deletion of the sentence some, misgivings *
whether ambition might not overreach itself. /Possibly the (
cataloguing of every star might be achieved, by sharing out the I
work : but what about " careful and often repeated observations " 1~^
Perhaps that had better go out ? However, the other enthusiasts
y were ioo many for him and it was ultimately retained.
We see then that the infant Society did not merely " hitch
/ its waggon to a star," but would be content with nothing less
Jhan the whole universe of stars down to the minutest. For-
tunately they were nevertheless men who realised well enough that
whatever their ultimate aims might be, their beginnings must be
eminently sober and practical. They started with the reform of
the Nautical Almanac; and read papers to one another about
micrometers and refraction; or arranged skeleton forms for
* On 1 820 December 19, Sir John writes to Babbage : " Why not proceed to
set on foot that ' regular systematic examination of the heavens ' about which
there is so much said ad captandum vulgus in the Address ? "
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 7
recording observations hundreds of which remain blank to this
day. But the observational programme was, as already men-
tioned, only one of the considerations put forward in the Address :
others were the collation and publication of observations already
made or to be made ; the education of observers ; the deter-
minations of position on our earth ; the improvement of lunar
tables ; the establishment of relations with foreign astronomers,
who may be elected Associates ; the diffusion of information ; the
computation of orbits ; the formation of a library ; and the
proposal of prize questions.
Besides the Address, there were " regulations " (which ulti-
mately became our " Bye-Laws ") to be made before the first
meeting on February 8. The death of the King on January 29
threw a cloud over this first meeting, so that after reading the
Regulations, making some slight changes in them, resolving that
they should be printed, as also the Address " with such alterations
as [the Committee] may think proper " (wherein we probably
catch a reflection of Sir John Herschel's grievances), it was decided
to defer any but pressing business to " some future day out of
respect to the memory of his late Majesty, whose funeral had not
yet taken place." Under the circumstances it was creditable that
twenty-one members attended this meeting : and the number of
those who had formally joined the new Society was reported as
forty- seven. The " future day " was fixed as February 29, when
twenty-eight attended, including the Duke of Somerset, who was
unanimously elected President. The Vice-Presidents were Cole-
brooke, Groombridge, Sir William Herschel, and the Astronomer
Royal (Pond) ; Treasurer, Dr. Pearson ; Secretaries, Babbage,
Baily, and John Herschel (Foreign) ; and Council, Col. Beaufoy,
Capt. Colby, Olinthus Gregory, T. Harrison, D. Moore, E. Trough-
ton ; while A. Baily, D. Moore, and C. Stokes were appointed
Trustees. The roll of membership was by that time eighty-three.
The meeting concluded with votes of thanks to the Geological
Society for the hospitality of their rooms for these early meetings,
and to Daniel Moore for his good offices as chairman : and so far
all had gone well.
But at the next meeting a blow fell : Sir Joseph Banks, the
President of the Royal Society, had induced the Duke of Somerset
to decline the Presidency. It seems to have been quite unex-
pected, for Baily did not write about it to Sir John Herschel until
March n, the day after the meeting, and the Duke's letter is dated
March 9, the day before. But apparently Sir Joseph Banks had
been at work in various directions. Baily writes :
A similar attack was made by Sir Jos Banks on the Astronomer
Royal, who, if report be true, made a very spirited reply. As a
8 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
similar, and indeed a more violent, attack was made at the establish-
ment of the Geological Society, and also of the Royal Institution,
and which only tended to unite more firmly the original members,
we hope that a similar result will also be produced here.
It seems also worthy of record that in Sir John Herschel's
Diary there are the following entries :
Sat., Feb. 26. Committee of Astronomical. Dined with Mr.
Baily.
Sun., Feb. 27. Sir J. Banks.
Mon., Feb. 28. Went in morning to Dr. Pearson's at East Sheen
where I spent the day. In morning read over with the Dr. his
paper on Micrometers for Astron. Society. Mrs. P. & Mr. & Mrs.
Moffat were the party besides the Dr. & myself. In evening
after a little music returned to London.
Tues., Feb. 29. Took up quarters at Bedford Place & dined
there. My Father and Mother came to dinner. Evening, attended
the meeting of the Astronomical Society, at which my Father was
voted a Vice-President. Babbage, one of y e English Secretaries,
& myself y e Foreign.
N.B. Duke of Somerset, Pres., to whom with the other
Secretaries I was introduced by Dr. Pearson. Supped with
Babbage.
Fri., Mar. 3. Returned to Slough with my Father & Mother,
calling on my uncle B. on the way.
Mon., Mar. 13. Wrote to F. Baily in expression of strong
indignation at the part Sir J. Banks has thought proper to take
respecting the Astronomical Society in persuading the Duke of
Somerset to resign y e Presidentship also desiring information on
the subject of the private observatories on the Continent.
The cryptic entry of February 27 between two notes about the
new Society, which was clearly occupying Sir John's thoughts
to a considerable extent, can scarcely be interpreted otherwise
than that Sir J. Banks must have known of the new Society on
February 27, though he delayed action until after February 29.
But without further preamble let us inspect the Minutes of the
March meeting of Council :
MINUTES OF COUNCIL
Friday, March 10, 1820
The first meeting of the Council took place this day at 3 o'clock
in the afternoon ; present : H. T. Colebrooke, Esq. ; S. Groom-
bridge, Esq. ; Rev. Dr. Pearson ; F. Baily, Esq. ; Col. M. Beaufoy ;
Capt. T. Colby ; T. Harrison, Esq. ; D. Moore, Esq. ; E. Troughton,
Esq. S. Groombridge, Esq., in the chair.
SIR JOHN HERSCHEL
(1792-1871)
To face p. 8.]
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 9
A letter (of which the following is a copy) was received from his
Grace the Duke of Somerset, viz. :
" PARK LANE, gth March 1820.
" To the Council of the Astronomical Society of London.
" Gentlemen, The gratification I derived from the appoint-
ment, with which your Society honoured me at its last meeting,
& which was then only qualified by the apprehension of my
inadequacy as to fulfilling its duties, has since been obliged to
yield entirely to a feeling of a different kind, and one which
(I am sorry to say) will no longer allow me to hold that high
situation. The professions which terminate the Address of
your Society, and some great names which are to be found in
the list of its members, had given ample ground for trusting
that, as nothing was intended inimical, so, nothing could follow
prejudicial, to the interests of an old respectable and chartered
body. Its President is however of quite a different opinion,
and apprehends the ruin of the Royal Society. To Sir Joseph
Banks I have been long & strongly attached, not only by the
ties of public regard, but those of private friendship ; and my
remaining in a post, which he considers as a hostile position,
might be liable to unfavourable comments, & would certainly
be veYy painful to my own feelings. I trust therefore you
will not wonder that, under the influence of these impressions,
I feel myself obliged to resign the flattering hope of connecting
my name with the labours of the Astronomical Society, &
that I am under the necessity of withdrawing from the list
of its members : & that I am indeed to hope that you will
receive this my immediate & sudden resignation & recession
with that indulgence which I can only claim on account
of the motive which I profess. I have the honour to be,
Gentlemen, your much obliged & obedient serv.
" SOMERSET."
A letter was also received from John Fuller, Esq., stating that
he did not mean to belong to the Astronomical Society, because
it did not meet with the approbation of Sir Joseph Banks.
The Treasurer reported that A. Baily, Esq. ; F. Baily, Esq. ;
Capt. Colby ; D. Moore, Esq. ; J. South, Esq. ; and himself and
Mr. Troughton had each paid the sum of Twenty guineas, as a
composition for their future annual contributions.
Resolved unanimously
That the several compositions for the annual contributions
which have been, and may hereafter be, received by the Society,
shall be, from time to time, invested in the Navy 5 p. cents., in
the joint names of the Trustees of this Society for the time being ;
as a separate fund.
^__Jlesolved unanimously
/ That the Capital Stock, created by such investment, shall remain
/ as a permanent fund, the interest only of which shall, if necessary,
/ be appropriated to the current expences of the Society.
io - HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
Resolved unanimously
That the Treasurer be required to lay out, from time to time,
in public securities, such other sums in his hands, not requisite for
the current expences of the Society.
The above minutes were read and admitted to be correct,
April 14, 1820.
FRANCIS BAILY, Sec. H. T. COLEBROOKE.
At this distance of time we can afford to regard with equanimity
the action of Sir Joseph Banks, and to recall some circumstances
which may remove any feeling of bitterness. He had had a long
and distinguished reign of forty years over the Royal Society,
but it had nearly come to an end. On 1820 May 18, age and
illness led him to tender his resignation of the Presidency ; but it
wasjnot accepted by the Council, and he accordingly withdrew
tyC The early R.A.S. Minutes have reminded us of the death of
/.King George III. on January 29. When the Bishop of Carlisle and
the Vice-Presidents of the Royal Society waited upon the new
monarch with the book of signatures, he took occasion, after
inscribing his name as Patron, to congratulate the Society that
Sir Joseph Banks should have withdrawn his resignation and
continue in office : and doubtless His Majesty represented public
opinion. But the continuance was for a few months only, and on
the death of the veteran, the new President, Sir Humphry Davy,
was most cordial to the new Society. We need not make too much
of the fears of an old and enfeebled man : nor need we regard un-
favourably the action of his friend the Duke of Somerset in refusing
to wound him at such a time. Their relations were apparently
closely personal, as we may gather from the Duke's letter itself,
but more definitely still on looking up his personal history.
According to The Times for 1855 August 16, he named his third
son Algernon Percy Banks Seymour (1813-94), doubtless out of
regard for his friend. [The son of this third son ultimately suc-
ceeded to the title, following his father after all three sons had
inherited in turn.] The Duke chosen as President was the eleventh
( I 775~ I 855) 5 and succeeded to the peerage on his father's death in
1793. He was F.R.S., F.S.A., F.L.S. ; President of the Royal
Literary Fund (1801-38) and of the Royal Institution for some
years ; "an excellent landlord ; " supported the repeal of the
Corn Laws ; and wrote books on the ellipse and circle (1842 and
1850). Our founders seem to have made a thoroughly good
choice, and we may well regret that regard for an old friend's
feelings, however mistaken they may have been, prevented so
worthy a man starting us on our way.
The first impulse of the executive was to find a new President
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY n
of somewhat similar type. " Application has been made to a
nobleman, of nearly equal rank," writes Baily to J. Herschel on
March n, "who is less dependent on the opinion of others, and
who is more fitted for the situation." But apparently the reply
was unfavourable, for on March 19, Herschel wrote to Babbage
asking, "Has the Marquis of Abercorn been suggested ? I can't
say, Sir X.Y. seems to me a very proper man. Lord Lansdowne
may do very well. If we want rank, why should not the Duke of
Gordon, one of our members, be applied to ? Here is a queer
problem of chances which leads to such diabolical series as resist
hitherto all my attempts to find their law. A and B toss up
they play double or quits In n games what is the probability
that the stake will attain 2 1 x original stake." And so the great
and versatile man passes from the problems of the moment to those
of more permanent interest. Ultimately it was decided not to elect
a new President until the end of the year, and then Sir William
Herschel, already a Vice-President as we have seen, accepted the
higher Chair, though, on the understanding that he should not
be called up for active service. A letter of John Herschel to
Babbage shows that a tentative proposal of the same kind had been
made by the Council in April 1920, but at that time his father
was unwilling to take the office even under the conditions proposed.
When, shortly afterwards, he died full of years and honours,
Colebrooke, who had often represented him in the Chair, was
elected his successor.
TThe new Society being now fairly launched, let us see how they
i_ began work.
THE MEETINGS.
For accounts of the meetings of the Society nowadays we
should go To the "Monthly ^Notices or to the more informal records
of discussion in The Observatory magazine. But neither of these
sources of information exist for the early years. The latter is
a comparatively recent institution ; ihe_MmiMy_No^jces extend
back onjy tc^^2j^aj^ can be done to extend
them to 1820, as will presently be shown, even then they are but
meagre. We are thrown chiefly on the Minutes and a few brief
contemporary references ; and the general impression created is
one of admiration for the hardihood of those who lived through the
early meetings. Apparently it was the custom to read the papers
pitilessly through, and a long paper might extend over more than
one meeting. The St. James's CJiromcle~o 1820 May 13-16, records
(in a scrap preserved by Dr. Lee) as follows :
Astronomical Society. The first meeting of this Society was
held a few days ago at the house of the Geological Society, Bedford
12 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
Street, Covent Garden, and was very numerously attended. A
paper by the Rev. Dr. Pearson was read on the subject of a new
micrometer which he had invented for measuring small distances
in the field of a telescope. . . .
At this first ordinary meeting, held at eight o'clock on March 10,
the Minutes tell us that twenty-eight members were present,
Stephen Groombridge being in the Chair. Three new members
were proposed, for election (being numbers 84, 85, and 86), a score
of book's were presented by Brisbane, Stokes, Hutton, Colby, and
Baily, and then Dr. Pearson's paper was read " On the doubly-
refracting property of rock-chrystal, considered as a principle of
micrometrical measurements when applied to a telescope." The
summary of its contents (two pages of MS. minutes) ends with the
statement, "The practical application of the micrometer thus
constructed the author proposes to communicate at a subsequent
meeting of the Society."
At the meeting of April 14, Colebrooke was in the Chair ;
22 were present ; 13 new members were proposed ; and Dr.
Pearson gave his promised description of the construction and use
of his micrometer, producing actual instruments and measures
made with them.
On May 12, Groombridge in the Chair, 24 members and one
visitor present ; 5 new members were proposed ; the 3 proposed in
March were elected (thus initiating the adopted practice of election
two meetings after proposal). Dr. Brinkley, Professor at Dublin,
one of the five proposed, explained that his tardiness in coming
forward was due to accidental delay in his receiving the original
circular, which he much regretted ; news of the proposal for an
observatory at Cambridge was announced ; and Mr. James South
read a paper on double stars.
On June 9 (Colebrooke in the Chair), no list of members present
is given. Eight new members and one Associate (Biot) were
proposed ; the 13 proposed in April were all elected, and 2 of the
3 elected in May were formally admitted (there was, however, as
yet, no book for them to sign : that came later). Captain Basil
Hall announced that he was sailing in a frigate to the south of
Cape Horn, and would be happy to receive instructions for nautical
observations likely to be of value. F. Baily read a paper " upon
a method of fixing a transit instrument exactly in the meridian,"
and Sir H. Englefield addressed the meeting orally. From the fact
that he apologised for doing so, owing to " his present inability
to write on any subject " we may infer the rigidity of the rule that
communications must be in writing. He drew attention to some
old observations which might refer to comets, or perhaps satellites
to Venus, and suggested further search.
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 13
In November (Colebrooke in the Chair ; 9 members and 7
Associates proposed, 6 members elected, 3 admitted) it was an-
nounced that a Committee had handed a paper of instructions to
Captain Basil Hall (in 1822 the same instructions were handed to
Captain Owen, who was going to the east coast of Africa).
Attention was drawn to the favourable position of the moon for
occulting the Pleiades ; two books were presented, and also a bronze
medal of Copernicus presented by Peter Slawinski, one of the 14
who originally met on January 10 ; Groombridge read a paper
on star-reductions ; and Gauss on a new meridian circle at
Gottingen.
In December (Dr. Pearson, Treasurer, in the Chair) 2 members
and 4 Associates were proposed, 8 members and i Associate (Biot)
elected and 4 members admitted. Four books were presented ;
and papers read by Groombridge (ephemeris of Vesta) and Baily
(solar eclipse of 1820 September 7). Troughton began his paper
on the Repeating Circle and Altazimuth, but neither this meeting
nor that in January sufficed for the complete reading of it, and it
occupied also the whole of the March meeting (February being
devoted to the annual meeting, according to the practice still
followed). But the story was again taken up in April by George
Dollond, who gave his views about the Repeating Circle : so that
four consecutive ordinary meetings were largely devoted to this
instrumental description, the last being relieved only by some
observations of comet Pons-Nicollet sent by Olbers.
These brief notes of the first year's work will suffice to illustrate
its nature. It is needless to say more of the papers themselves,
ch are all printed fully in the first volurrie^)TThe~M^m. R.A.S.
} There was not much to attract the populace : but the men who
formed the backbone of the Society were made of stern stuff, and
often when the ordinary meeting was over, sat down again to carry
on the work which they had failed to complete at Council in the
afternooiv Council met at three o'clock, and probably continued
its labours until the hour for the dinner at which we know (from
other records) that the chief councillors generally assembled.
From this they came back to the eight o'clock meeting, with its
frequent appendix of an adjourned Council. In one burst of
enthusiasm, Sir John Herschel moved that the meetings of the
Society should be held twice in the month during the session, but
after some discussion thereon he withdrew the motion (Council
Minutes, 1821 April). But the Council had occasionally to meet
twice. We may rightly infer that the work of the Council in those
early days was by no means the least important part of the work
of the new Society. The irreverent may perhaps hint at the
attraction of the Club dinner, but it is a significant fact (which
14 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
may surely be borrowed without impropriety from the Club
Annals), that on occasions when there was a dinner without a
meeting of the Society and the Counciirifre attendance was apt
to be small... This fact is explicitly deplored in the Annals afore-
said, and from the point of view of the Club, which called these
meetings specially for the regulation of its own affairs, the regret
is intelligible. But in compensation we get the knowledge that
what really attracted these earnest men and brought them together
was the work : the courageous endeavour to do something not
only for the Society itself but for Astronomy generally. Round
the Council table they discussed how to stimulate astronomical
research by offering prizes ; how to obtain better object glasses for
telescopes (it will Toe remembered that the Herschels worked with
mirrors); how to make astronomical tables; how to arrange
convenient forms of reduction_for observations (we are accustomed
to associate such forms with Greenwich, and especially with Airy ;
but Pearson and Baily used them long before Airy) ; how to mea-
sure the length of the second's pendulum ; and how to improve
the Nautical Almanac. When we remember that they had also
to start the new Society from the cradle, to build up its funds
and its library, to arrange for the printing of its Memoirs, even
to find a home for it as mentioned below, we see that there
was plenty of work for jthe Council ; and it does not need much
imagination to trace the origin of the earnest spirit which
fortunately still animates it to those early days when there
was so much to be done and so little to look back upon as
achieved.
A few instances will suffice to illustrate the history of those
early years. On Thursday, 1820 November 30, the Council met
at 10 a.m. at Baily's house to consider a request (signed by South,
Fallowes, G. Dollond, P. Kelly, B. Donkin) for accurate tables
of the 45 Greenwich stars for 1822, 1823, 1824. Now that we
have a "clock star" every few minutes, we may well admire the
restraint of those who pleaded for one every half-hour. The
actual request was not pressed when the Council promised to do
its best. According to a report made a week later the main
obstacle was the indolent Board of Longitude. In the N.A. for
1822 there is, indeed, a list of the 45 stars, but ephemerides are
only given for 24 of them, so that there were such gaps as 2 h 28 m
(a Arietis to Aldebaran) and 3 h i8 m (Regulus to Spica) during
which an observer could not conveniently find his clock error.
This state of things continued for several years, the N.A. for
1826 showing no improvement. Perhaps we may reproduce
(from the N.A. for 1822) the names of the Board of Longitude.
From their laxity we should rather expect to find them officials
.
1 820-
20-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 15
innocent of Astronomy, but they include some very respectable
names, especially that of the Secretary :
BOARD OF LONGITUDE, 1820
J. W. Croker, S.A. S. P. Rigaud. '
Jos. Banks, P.R.S. Isaac Milner.
Davies Gilbert. Samuel Vince.
Rob. Woodhouse. W. Lax.
John Pond, Ast.R. W. H. Wollaston.
A. Robertson. W. Mudge.
THOS. YOUNG, Secretary.
With the rebuff encountered by the new Society in our minds,
we read these names with surprise, and may reflect on the justice
of the saying that a Board or Committee is apt to combine not the
wisdom but the folly of the members, or shall we modify it by
substituting " not the activity but the inertia."
It is a pleasure to contrast the conduct of the R.A.S. Council,
which set about calculating and printing the requisite ephemerides
for 1823. Such work was followed up until it resulted in Rally's
Catalogue of nearly 3000 fixed stars (Mem. R.A.S., 2, Appendix)
with the " star constants " a, b, c, d, etc., and day constants for
every tenth day for the years 1826-30, a really magnificent achieve-
ment for a Society (indeed, almost for an individual member of
that Society) in the face of official laxity and discouragement.
This method of computing " star corrections " is now so familiar
that we find it difficult to imagine the state of affairs before Baily
introduced it into England and ultimately into the Nautical
Almanac for 1834, which was " constructed in strict conformity
with the recommendations of the ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY of
London " a great triumph for the Society, of which more will be
said in the next chapter. Baily did not invent the method, he
took it from Bessel and Schumacher, with a modification of his
own for which he offers the following reason * :
It may be proper here to state that the values denoted in the
present tables by A, B, C, D, are denoted by M. SCHUMACHER C, D,
A, B respectively. But, in the choice of characters to represent
given quantities, it is desirable that we should, as much as possible,
make them serve the purpose of an artificial memory. It is on this
account that I have made A, B represent the quantity by which the
A Berration is determined ; C the quantity by which the preCession
is determined ; and D the quantity by which the Deviation, or
(as it is now more generally called) the nutation, is determined.
The reason seems a good one, and it is perhaps a pity that the
* Mem. R.A.S., 2, xxx, footnote.
16 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
stolid obstinacy of the Germans should have triumphed over it.
In the N.A. for 1916 the Superintendent has abandoned Baily's
notation for the German.
Turning to different matters, in 1823 February it was reported
to the Council that Tulley had completed a 2-in. O.G. from glass
by Guinand of Neufchatel, which Dollond had found satisfactory.
[The spelling of such names in the Minutes varies considerably.]
A Committee of Gilbert, Herschel, and Pearson was thereupon
authorised to purchase similar glass " on account of the Society "
to an amount not exceeding 100 : but it was reported in April
that the maker had no adequate supply of the glass. Tulley's
telescope was purchased by Baily for 14 guineas, after others had
declined it (May 9). In November a further supply of glass from
Guinand was reported : viz., 3 pieces of flint glass, 2 amorphous, and
one as a disc for a 7i-in. O.G. This disc was put into the hands
of Tulley and Dollond, and ultimately Tulley fashioned an O.G.
of nearly 7 inches aperture which Dr. Pearson purchased, giving
200 to Tulley, and paying 20, i6s. 6d. + 700 francs for the glass
to Guinand. A report on the whole transaction is printed in
Mem. R.A.S., 2 9 507 ; but neither this brief summary of facts
which to-day seem unimportant nor the report mentioned can
convey an adequate idea of the time and thought spent by the
Council, at many meetings, in this attempt to obtain better re-
fracting telescopes. They were grievously disappointed at Tulley's
charge of 200, and told him so, pointing out what a discourage-
ment it was to further work. It was only the kindly generosity
of Dr. Pearson which smoothed over an awkward situation.
BEFORE THE BEGINNING
Let us now, before following the history of our Society further,
turn back to some circumstances attending its inception. In the
Memoirs of Augustus De Morgan (sect. iii. p. 41) the following
remarks of Sir John Herschel are quoted :
The end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth
centuries were remarkable for the small amount of scientific move-
ment going on in this country, especially in its more exact depart-
ments. . . . Mathematics were at the last gasp, and Astronomy
nearly so I mean in those members of its frame which depend
upon precise measurement and systematic calculation. The
chilling torpor of routine had begun to spread itself over all those
branches of science which wanted the excitement of experimental
research.
The foundation of our Society was thus associated with an
awakening from this deplorable state of affairs. We must be
careful to note the qualifying phrase with regard to Astronomy ;
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 17
it was on the mathematical side that it was defective : on the
observational side the period mentioned was precisely that of the
immortal work of Sir John's own father, and was not likely to be
overlooked. We can the better understand why the early activities
of our Society were chiefly concerned with the stimulation of
progress where it was most needed. But we were fortunately not
the only new Society, nor even the first. The facts may be briefly
recalled by quoting from an article in the Quarterly Review for
June 1826 :
From the institution of the Royal Society in 1663, to the year
1788, when the Linnean was founded, no subdivision of scientific
labour was attempted in our metropolis. The Royal Society
continued, without assistance, to embrace within its aim the
cultivation of every department of natural philosophy ; but a
further subdivision of labour, as inseparable a consequence of the
progress of the sciences as of the arts, was at length effected with
the concurrence and co-operation of the Royal Society itself ; and
the prosecution of the studies of zoology and botany in all their
details was the chief object of the institution of the Linnean Society,
which received a royal charter in 1802, and has now published
fourteen volumes of Transactions, containing a variety of most
valuable memoirs.
The Royal Institution, the next in order of date, was founded
in 1799, and the College of Surgeons in 1800.
The Horticultural Society, established in 1804, although designed
to promote luxury rather than science, must not be omitted here.
. . . The London Institution, " for the advancement of Literature
and the diffusion of Useful Knowledge," was founded in 1805 and
chartered in 1807. . . . The Geological Society of London, estab-
lished in 1807 and chartered in 1825, has been eminently successful
in giving the impulse to the study of geology in Great Britain. . . .
The institution of the Astronomical Society of London in 1821 (sic)
was actively promoted by many of the most distinguished fellows
of the Royal Society. Besides the excellent volume of Trans-
actions already published, we have pleasure in being able to state
other important benefits which have resulted from their efforts.
A valuable set of tables for reducing the observed to the true places
of the stars is preparing at the expense of the Society, including
above 3000 stars, and comprehending all known to those of the
fifth magnitude inclusive, and all the most useful of the sixth and
seventh.
In addition to this the reviewer mentions the machine called
Babbage's Calculating Machine, which had already secured
Government encouragement, and continues :
After this brief enumeration of the chief scientific institutions
of the metropolis, which the reader cannot peruse without being
i8 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
struck with their recent increase, we hasten to consider the rise
and progress of similar institutions in the provinces.
He mentions first the Observatories at Oxford (Radcliffe),
Dublin, Armagh, Cambridge, and the private Observatories of Mr.
South and Mr. Herschel, commenting adversely and emphatically
on the fact that " no public observatory where observations are
regularly made exists at present in Scotland." Mention is also
made of the Ashmolean Society of Oxford, the Literary and
Philosophical Society of Manchester (1781), the Royal Geological
Society of Cornwall (1814), the Liverpool Royal Institution (1814),
the Cambridge Philosophical Society (1819), the Bristol Institu-
tion (1820), the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, and " many other
institutions in our provinces, such as those of Newcastle, Bath,
Leeds, and Exeter."
OUR FOUNDERS
It seems further desirable to give here a few words about some
of the men who founded the Society. About a few of them infor-
mation is already available in plenty, as, for instance, in the case
of Sir William Herschel, the first nominal President of the Society,
and there is no need to say more here ; but the case is somewhat
different with the second President the first who actually filled
the Chair, H. T. Colebrooke. His name may be quite unfamiliar
to most astronomers, and yet he was a very remarkable man. He
died in 1837 after some years of suffering both bodily and mental,
and our Monthly Notices of the time (4, 108) give little beyond a
reference to a short Memoir in the Annual Report of the Royal
Society. But the essay by Max Muller, which appeared in the
Edinburgh Review for October 1872, and was reprinted in Chips
from a German Workshop, and in the Biographical Essays (Long-
mans, 1884), enables us to form some estimate of the intellectual
stature of Colebrooke. Max Miiller calls him the " Founder and
father of true Sanskrit scholarship in Europe," and remarks with
some bitterness that if he had lived in Germany his name would
have been written in letters of gold on the walls of academies ; but
that in England, though we may hear the popular name of Sir
William Jones, we hear not one word of the infinitely more impor-
tant achievements of Colebrooke.
To show that this is not a careless comparison, he returns to
it at the end of his essay, and deliberately declares that, " as
Sanskrit scholars, Sir William Jones and Colebrooke cannot be
compared. Sir William had explored a few fields only, Colebrooke
had surveyed almost the whole domain of Sanskrit literature."
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 19
Those interested will, from this reference and with this guiding
estimate, be able to follow up this line of thought for themselves.
What specially interests us is the beginning of this interest in
Sanskrit, which was from the first scientific rather than literary.
Colebrooke's love of mathematics and astronomy made him
anxious to find out what the Brahmans had achieved in this branch
of knowledge, and Max Muller draws attention to the surprising
correctness of his first letter to his father on the four modes of
reckoning time adopted by Hindu astronomers. " In stating the
rule for finding the planets which preside over the day called
Hord, he was the first to point out the palpable coincidence be-
tween that expression and our name for the twenty-fourth part of
the day." * But that his literary enthusiasm was at this time not
very great is clear from his reference to other scholars, and his
opinion that all to be expected from Sanskrit was that a few dry
facts might possibly reward the literary drudge. He himself took
up the study and left it again in despair several times, and in 1793
wrote that " no historical light can be expected from Sanskrit
literature ; but it may, nevertheless, be curious, if not useful, to
publish such of their legends as seem to resemble others known to
European mythology," at which Max Muller exclaims : " The first
glimmering of comparative mythology in 1793 ! " Even then his
studies were guided by a practical rather than by a literary motive.
He was keenly interested, for instance, in the agriculture of the
Hindus, and possibly not only the Astronomical Society and the
Asiatic Society might reckon him as a pioneer, but also those who
study the history of agriculture. The Asiatic Society he founded
in 1822, though he refused to become the first President. We may
regard it therefore as specially significant that he occupied our
own Chair at about the same date. He had spent thirty-three
years in India, having arrived there in 1783 when only seventeen
years of age, and left it in 1815 at the age of fifty. His essays were
collected by his son, who added a brief life of his father, and it
was the appearance of a new edition of these two volumes that
gave occasion for Max Miiller's essay. The portrait of him which
hangs in our meeting-room is from a painting in the possession of
the family, and was kindly presented to us.
One point of detail may be mentioned. On 1821 June 8 the
Council, who had to settle the type for the Memoirs, resolved to
adopt the same as that of Colebrooke's Indian Algebra.
* In Colebrooke's Miscellaneous Essays, vol. ii., there are two lengthy
papers (reprinted from the Asiatic Researches], "On the Indian and Arabian
Divisions of the Zodiac " and " On the Notion of the Hindu Astronomers
concerning the Precession of the Equinoxes and Motions of the Planets."
Also an essay "On the Algebra of the Hindus," reprinted from Colebrooke's
translation of Brahmegupta's Algebra.
20 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
Before Colebrooke, however, before Sir W. Herschel, before
even the Duke of Somerset, we had as effective President Mr.
Daniel Moore, who was specially thanked for taking the Chair at
the preliminary meetings. What manner of man was he ? He
died in 1828 before it had become the custom to give many bio-
graphical details of our deceased Fellows. We read in the Council
Report of " our amiable and excellent trustee Mr. Daniel Moore,
whose loss will be felt far beyond the limits of this body by many,
as the privation of a benefactor, in whose ears the calls of distress
never sounded in vain," and that is all : but it is much. A casual
reference in one of Sir John Herschel's letters gives us almost the
same picture. He is " our friend Moore, whose money burns in
his pocket," and who might come to the rescue " if the low state
of [the Society's] funds be talked of." It is but a glimpse we get,
but a very pleasant glimpse.
Such were the men who took the Chair at the early meetings,
either actually or nominally. But there is no question that for
real initiative the Society owes almost everything to two men,
the Rev. William Pearson and Francis Baily. Probably the
combination of the two was really necessary. The dreamer
Pearson had long had the project vaguely in mind, but required
the help of Baily, a man of affairs, to put it into practical shape.
The incidence of Baily can be traced in his Appendix * to a Memoir
on a new and certain Method of ascertaining the Figure of the
Earth by means of Occultations of the Fixed Stars. By A.
Cagnoli. With Notes and an Appendix by Francis Baily.
London, 1819. 8vo.
He therein (p. 29) strongly urges the formation of an ASTRONO-
MICAL SOCIETY, with a library and a collection of observations,
referring to Pingre's Annales Celestes : and that the scheme took
shape within a year strongly suggests that this new and vigorous
influence was the determining cause. But Dr. Pearson had had
the idea as early as 1812, and it was he who ultimately assembled
those interested at a friendly dinner ) in order to hatch out the
project. The facts are given in two letters which were printed
by De Morgan, and are bound up with some copies of the Monthly
Notices (26), but not with all. It seems, therefore, desirable to
reproduce them here : with the comment that (in spite of the
* I am indebted to Dr. Dreyer for this reference, which he first found in
the library of the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford. It is catalogued in the
R.A.S. and Crawford libraries, but under Cagnoli, and in the former case with
no cross-reference.
f Until seeing the entry in the Diary of Sir John Herschel, I had always
supposed that this dinner was on a date before January 12, and probably at
Dr. Pearson's house ; but the facts seem consistent with the dinner being that
at Freemason's Tavern, immediately preceding (or following) the meeting
of January 12.
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 21
statement made in M.N., 8, 73, that the dinner was at East Sheen)
the dinner was probably simply that at Freemason's Tavern as
mentioned in Sir John Herschel's Diary (see p. i).
LETTER FROM A. DE MORGAN, ESQ., TO THE PRESIDENT, ON THE
FOUNDATION OF THE SOCIETY
" On looking over old papers, I find copies whence obtained,
I forget of two letters connected with the foundation of the
Society, in the handwriting of Mr. B. Smith, who was Dr. Lee's
secretary. With them I found a letter from Dr. Lee (September
19, 1857) m answer to my inquiries. It appears that the originals
had then been, for many years, in possession of Captain Smyth,
who entertained, from 1830 to 1834, or thereabouts, the intention
of writing on the foundation of the Society. The copies are ad-
dressed to Mr. Sheepshanks in the handwriting of Captain Smyth,
with the postmark ' Bedford, May 24, 1834.' My impression
is that Mr. Sheepshanks handed them to Mr. Baily, among whose
papers I should have been sure to have found them. In this I
am somewhat confirmed by observing that Mr. Sheepshanks, in
his obituary notice of Dr. Pearson (Annual Report, 1848), shows
only a general recollection of the first letter, and none at all of
the second. As Admiral Smyth and Dr. Lee are now gone, and
probably no one but myself knows of the letters, I think it right
to put their contents on record.
" The first is from Dr. Patrick Kelly (the author of the Cambist)
to Dr. Pearson, December 12, 1812. He says : ' It [a meeting of
schoolmasters] may be also a very auspicious time for us to lay
some foundation for your suggestion respecting an Astronomical
Society. I have mentioned it to two or three scientific gentlemen,
who all approved very much of the idea ; and one in particular,
Mr. [Peter] Nicholson, thinks that under good management it
might become of great importance to science.' In a postscript
Dr. Kelly adds : ' If the Astronomical Society should ever become
great, you must not forget that you are the Father of it. There
are several eminent societies in town possessing inferior objects.'
It thus appears that Dr. Pearson had formed the plan by 1812
and was endeavouring to promote the formation.
" Mr. Sheepshanks mentions, as a rumour, that the meeting of
January 12, 1820, at which the Society came into existence, was
resolved upon at a dinner given by Dr. Pearson. The second
letter fixes this rumour as a fact. It is from Mr. (Sir James)
South to Dr. Pearson, December 13, 1819, giving permission to
add the* writer's name to a list then in collection, and accepting
an invitation to dinner ; the date of the symposium is not given.
22 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
It thus appears that Dr. Pearson kept the plan in his head, where
it lived through his transformation from a thriving London school-
master into a country rector and magistrate, that he got together
a number of astronomers to join him, and lubricated the business,
to use Sam Johnson's phrase, by a dinner. I may be permitted
so much reference to our age and country as will appear in a slight
alteration of Moliere's text :
" Le veritable fondateur
Est le fondateur oh Ton dine.
" Francis Baily (1819) gave in print a recommendation that such
a Society should be formed. Sir J. Herschel, when he wrote his
life of Baily, was not aware that Dr. Pearson had been agitating
the plan for seven years. Dr. Pearson, who finally left London in
1821, could not have been, what Baily was from the very first,
the guide and stay of the Society, an institution which many might
have founded, but few could have nursed. If the word be plural
both were founders ; but so far as it can be used in the singular
it applies only to Dr. Pearson.
" It must be remembered that in 1820, Dr. Pearson stood in
a position which the Society gradually altered by raising others to
his level. He had that knowledge, which his work of 1824 so amply
shows, coupled with great industry and zeal, and a remarkable
collection of instruments. His standing in society was good, and
his character high. To us Baily is what he made himself in making
the Society : but in 1820, though Baily was well above the horizon,
Pearson was on the meridian.
" It is to be remembered that we are not to assume that we know
of all Dr. Pearson's exertions in this matter. Action in 1812
and action in 1819, proved by record, may lead to more than sur-
mise of something like continuous effort through all the intervening
period. My floating recollections of what people said in 1830 tend
to strengthen the conclusion that Dr. Pearson never lost sight of
his favourite project."
Dr. Pearson died in 1847 and tne Council Report (M.N., 8, 69)
contains a notice of his life over which much pains was clearly
taken, but which ends apologetically for its meagreness. He was
born in 1767 at Whitbeck, Cumberland, and resided for some time
at Lincoln, where he constructed a portable clock which showed
the age of the moon. De Morgan wrote to John Herschel in 1867 :
" I have just found out that Dr. Pearson began life as a junior
partner in Sketchley & Pearson, who kept a school at Fulham for
boys from four to ten. Here he had been for some years in 1800.
I picked up a sensibly written prospectus they said plan then
[820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 23
D this establishment. I make out that he was not a graduate of
Oxford or Cambridge " (Mem. of A. De M., 372). In 1810 he
" became the proprietor of a celebrated establishment at Temple
Grove, East Sheen, where many of the nobility and gentry received
their preparatory education. Here he built an Observatory and
furnished it with instruments." In 1817 he was made rector of
South Kilworth, Leicestershire, but he continued to reside at East
Sheen until 1821, and was thus able to play his leading part in
the foundation of our Society. He removed in 1821 to South
Kilworth for the rest of his life, and erected there a considerable
Observatory, employing a permanent assistant. In 1824 and 1829
he published the two volumes of his Treatise on Practical Astronomy,
a monumental work of which he ultimately presented the unbound
sheets to the Society.
Since so little is known about our Founder, whatever more can
be gathered is of value. From two directions sidelights have
recently been thrown on his doings. The first is from the Reports
of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, already mentioned (see
p. 18) among those founded about the same time as our own
Society, and specially distinguished by the part it played in the
foundation of the British Association at York in 1831. Dr.
Pearson was one of those who attended this first meeting (of the
B. A.), and he took occasion to present to the Yorkshire Philoso-
phical Society his Treatise on Practical Astronomy. The Society
thereupon elected him as Honorary Member. He replied by
offering to present some valuable astronomical instruments (later
he specified a clock, a telescope, and a transit instrument) if the
Society would build an Observatory to house them. We may give
verbatim an extract from the Reports for 1832, 1833, and 1857 :
Dr. Pearson has given fifty copies of his Tables for the Reduction
of Astronomical Observations . This munificent patron of Astronomy
will contemplate with satisfaction the Observatory which is now
rising to receive his instruments and employ his useful tables.
The Committee appointed for this object have been scrupulously
attentive to the main point of a solid foundation and an immovable
basis for the instruments ; they have made provision for a large
transit and a circular instrument, and by placing the revolving
telescope on a separate foundation, believe that they shall at once
secure accurate observations for time and position, and allow, on
suitable occasions, more popular views of the heavenly phenomena.
1833. The Observatory has been put into active operation and
the labours of the Committee for Science have been assiduous and
productive.
1857. Important improvements have been made in the Observa-
tory. The object glass of the telescope (4 in. in aperture) presented
by the Rev. Dr. Pearson, for which the Observatory was built,
2 4 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
was found upon examination to have been altered so as to be out
of form, and a new one having been supplied by the liberality of
one of the Curators of the Observatory, William Gray, Esq., it has
been remounted in a new tube provided with eye-pieces, and the
instrument has thus been rendered very perfect.
The portable transit by Jones has disappeared, and we see
that the equatorial was replaced in 1857 : but the sidereal clock
by Barraud is still in the Observatory and keeps fair time, as the
present observer kindly informs me. He adds that Dr. Pearson
also presented the conical roof of the Observatory, which had
served as the roof of a summer-house in his rectory garden at
South Kilworth, and was constructed under the direction of the
celebrated Smeaton. It may perhaps be added that there had been
an Observatory in York before that due to Dr. Pearson's stimulus,
viz., that of Edward Pigott, who gave its longitude (from occulta-
tions) to Maskelyne in 1787 (4 m 25 s W.). It was from this Obser-
vatory that Goodricke observed Algol and 8 Cephei in 1782 ; and
Goodricke's papers are still preserved in (Dr.Pearson's)Observatory.
The school at East Sheen started by Dr. Pearson did not by
any means close when he went to South Kilworth. Our Fellow,
Admiral Sir H. Purey-Cust, was a scholar 1866-70, and has kindly
supplied some picturesque details about it, partly from the Temple
Grove Register (by H. W. Waterfield, 1905). Temple Grove,
formerly called Sheen Grove, was built in 1610. It has been
generally supposed that Sir William Temple lived there, and that
with him, as secretary, lived Jonathan Swift, better known as
Dean Swift. Here Swift became acquainted with the beautiful
and accomplished Stella, born at this place and the daughter of
Sir William Temple's steward. (The same claim is, however, made
for Moor Park, another residence of Sir William Temple.) " The
property descended to the first Lord Palmerston, who subsequently
sold it to Sir John Barnard. In or about 1810 it was bought by
Dr. William Pearson, who came from Parson's Green and apparently
brought a school with him. On part of the estate he built the
Observatory, where an inscription round the central pillar runs as
follows : To the memory of the Right Hon. Spencer Perceval,
who was cruelly murdered on the nth of May 1812, on which day
this edifice was also founded, the subjacent pillar is dedicated by
his grateful friend W. Pearson."
Both Dr. Pearson (headmaster, 1810-17) and Dr. Pinckney
(headmaster, 1817-1835) lived in the Observatory after retiring
from the headmaster ship.
There is a tradition that Benjamin Disraeli was at the school,
based on a passage in Coningsby describing how the hero was sent
to a " fashionable school " (cp. the extract from the Council
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 25
Report above) preparatory to Eton, where " he found about 200
youths of noble families and connections, lodged in a magnificent
villa, that had once been the retreat of a Minister, superintended
by a sycophantic doctor of divinity, already well beneficed and not
despairing of a bishopric by favouring the children of the great
nobles." As Disraeli was born in 1804, his schooldays would have
been about Dr. Pearson's time ; but his biographies mention
Blackheath and Walthamstow as his early schools. So that we
feel sure that the above rather unpleasant portrait has nothing
to do with our Founder, in spite of the following local allusion :
" Mr. Rigby was so clever that he contrived always to quarter
Coningsby on the father of one of his school-fellows, for Mr. Rigby
knew all his school-fellows and all their fathers. Mr. Rigby also
called to see him, not unfrequently would give him a dinner at the
Star and Garter, or even have him up to town for a week to
Whitehall."
If the Star and Garter is to be taken literally it certainly points
to East Sheen : but it may surely be a substitution for some other
famous dining place such as The Ship at Greenwich. Disraeli was
at school at Blackheath, and by an odd coincidence there was a
school there also associated with the name of Spencer Perceval
afterwards divided into two houses, Spencer House and Perceval
House.
In later years there was at Temple Grove a pupil whose name
(disguised) is even better known than that of Disraeli. In Tracks
of a Rolling Stone (1905) Mr. William Coke describes Temple Grove
as he knew it in 1837. He gave his name to the Billy Coke or
billycock hat, otherwise known from its maker, Mr. Bowler. Lord
Selborne and Lord Grey were also at the school, the former as a
contemporary of Admiral Purey-Cust. Another of our Fellows,
Colonel A. C. Bigg-W 7 ither, was there in 1853-55.
Certainly the works of Dr. Pearson, as we know them, do not
savour of a " sycophantic doctor of divinity." His generosity
seems to have been as great as his assiduity in labours, which many
men would find distasteful. It is no light matter to produce a
volume of astronomical tables. It is curious how this side of
astronomy seems to have fascinated our pioneers : probably it
was the link between Pearson and Baily.
We find ample evidence in the history of the early years of the
new Society that its prime motive was " precise measurement
and systematic calculation." It might have been supposed that
the more picturesque work of its first actual President, Sir William
Herschel, would inspire the active members to follow him, at
however respectful a distance, in examining nebulse, stellar clusters,
26 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
and other objects of special interest. Instead of this Francis
Baily led them on a campaign of meridian observation, star-
corrections, and improvement of the Nautical Almanac. Many of
our present Fellows would associate these ideas with the " chilling
torpor of routine," which Sir John Herschel deplored, and from
which (according to his implication rather than his direct state-
ment) the new Society offered a means of escape. But it must
be remembered that meridian work has been converted into
routine by the century of unremitting toil which stands between
us and our Founders toil which they did much to stimulate, and
which has provided us with the luxuries of accurate star-places
and star-movements which they were without, and which they
enthusiastically set out to acquire. The actual acquisition to-day
is, of course, largely due to the work of national observatories ;
but the conspicuous figures of Stephen Groombridge and Francis
Baily remind us of the important part played by our Society in
its early years. Flamsteed and Bradley had started such work
nearly a century earlier still, but had been indifferently supported.
In 1820 a new impulse was given by our own Fellows of a value
scarcely to be overestimated : for even the vigour of Airy might
have been less effective but for the support of the Royal
Astronomical Society.
As this close connection of our Society (and especially of
Baily) with accurate calculations is a really fundamental issue,
a few further remarks upon it may be pardoned. Let us look at
the following utterance of De Morgan in 1854 :
It appears to me that the Royal Society, during the present
century, has shown great want of power to appreciate improvements
in calculation of results ; and I am afraid I must add, that the
University to which I owe my own education has been one cause of
this exhibition. I think that for fifty years there was a growing
tendency at Cambridge to neglect, in teaching, all that follows the
resulting formula or the final equation ; though I suspect that
this tendency has passed its culminating point.
These words are quoted from an article in the Assurance
Magazine * on George Barrett and Francis Baily. The former was
a self-taught calculator (1752-1821), who had produced some
valuable Life Annuity Tables by a new method of his own. Baily
entered into correspondence with him, realised the great value of
his tables and method, and endeavoured to get them published.
One of his attempts was to submit a paper to the Royal Society in
1811 ; but the paper was rejected. De Morgan comments :
* A copy was bound up by De Morgan with his volume of Daily's Journal,
now in the R.A.S. library.
J. J. WATERSTON
(1811-1883)
To face p. 26. J
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 27
The rejection of Baily's paper on Barrett's method by the
Royal Society is one of those unfortunate instances which create
a fear lest there should be other communications, as valuable,
which have also been rejected, but have never found such a cham-
pion as Baily. It is usual to attribute this rejection to the late
William Morgan, who was at that time a member of the Council.
. . . But it must not be forgotten that the celebrated Thomas
Young, an acute writer on annuities, was also on the Council, and
as probably on the Committee. Baily . . . was afterwards, as it
happened, in open opposition to Young on the question of the
Nautical Almanac.
This paragraph suggests several reflections. Firstly, we cannot
but think of Waterston's paper on the Kinetic Theory of Gases,
rejected by the Royal Society in 1845, but subsequently rescued
and printed by Lord Rayleigh (Phil. Trans. A, 1892, 183, i).
He remarks that " the memoir marks an immense advance in the
direction of the now generally received theory. The omission to
publish it at the time was a misfortune which probably retarded
the development of the subject by ten or fifteen years. ... It
is difficult to put oneself in imagination into the position of the
reader of 1845, . . . but it is startling to find a referee expressing
the opinion that the paper is nothing but nonsense, unfit even for
reading before the Society." It is almost equally startling to read
the following considered judgment of Lord Rayleigh himself,
which gives all scientific societies food for thought :
The history of this paper suggests that highly speculative in-
vestigations, especially by an unknown author, are best brought
before the world through some other channel than a scientific
society, which naturally hesitates to admit into its printed records
matter of uncertain value. Perhaps one may go further, and say
that a young author who believes himself capable of great things
would usually do well to secure the favourable recognition of the
scientific world by work whose scope is limited, and whose value
is easily judged, before embarking upon higher flights.
We are strongly tempted to hope that this judgment may not
be sound. As regards Waterston himself, he had, to some extent,
adopted just the procedure recommended by sending to our own
Society (in 1844 June) a short note on a graphical method by which,
with ten to fifteen minutes work, an occultation could be predicted
within one minute ; and in the January following some good
observations of the comet. But, of course, the Royal Society
knew nothing of this. The figure of Waterston is so tragically
interesting that a brief reference to his later papers may be excused.
In 1858 he communicated to us some " Thoughts on the Formation
28 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
of the Tail of a Comet," which are surprisingly suggestive of modern
views of light pressure. He shows himself aware of the difficulties
in converting a vibratory movement into a translatory, but he is
impressed with the fact that if the whole heating power of the
sun's rays could be converted into a centrifugal force, the accelera-
tion would be 800 miles per sec. per sec. ; and he is tempted to
think that even a small fraction of this might serve. He draws
careful distinction between the case of a large body like the earth
and a " single and free molecule." In the following year he
considered the development of heat in the sun from bombardment
by meteors, but had not good enough data to make suggestions
of modern value. But he set about improving the data for radia-
tion by experiments of his own, though they still led him to a
potential temperature of about 12 million degrees for the solar
surface.
There our printed records about him practically stop. But,
alas ! there are others in our archives and minutes. At the end of
the Council Minutes for 1879 May 9, " A letter was read from Mr.
J. J. Waterston, asking that his name might be removed from the
list of Fellows of the Society. His request was acceded to."
Seeing that he had " compounded " for his annual subscriptions
(on 1852 January 9) the step is a remarkable one and led to further
search. In 1878 May and June two papers were received from
Waterston, and are duly recorded in the printed list (M.N., 39,
298-9), " On the Heat of the Stars, J. J. Waterston," " On a Solar
Thermometer Couple to Measure the radiant Force of Daylight,
J. J. W'aterston." But they were not allowed to be read or
printed. They even appear to have been returned to the author,
for they are the only absentees from the bundle of that year in
our archives. And their sequel and undoubted consequence was
the above withdrawal. These rebuffs undoubtedly prayed on his
mind. From occasional remarks his family knew that he had been
badly treated by scientific societies, but he never stated his
grievances explicitly. He was one of the kindliest of men, and a
great lover of children, by whom he was beloved in Edinburgh,
where he lived (after his return from India) in Gayfield Square,
off Leith Walk. One day in 1883 he went out for a walk and did
not return. He used often to go to Leith pier, and it was believed
that he had by some accident fallen into the water ; but his
body was never found.
It is of small value to look back over a hundred years if we may
not pause occasionally to reflect on some of the lessons suggested
in the retrospect ; and though this matter of the relationship of
scientific societies to their members is something of a digression,
it does touch on one of the factors which seems to have been
1820-
20-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 29
important as a stimulus to Baily, and therefore to our Society ;
and it is tragic that we should have nevertheless some memories
of a kind he would specially have deplored.
The second point suggested by De Morgan's words is this.
We probably follow the bent of his own thoughts in presuming
that the opposition encountered by Baily in 1811 in a matter
which his own work and experience had shown him to be important,
may have acted as a powerful stimulus when he met some of the
same opponents later over Nautical Almanac matters. Thomas
Young was the Secretary to the Board of Longitude, which had
allowed the Nautical Almanac to fall behind the times : and other
influential names may have been common to the two controversies.
Baily was a stalwart champion, as he showed later, especially in
the case of Flamsteed ; and it is possible that our Society benefited
to some extent by the warmth which his opponents had stirred
within him in 1811, and which had not yet cooled in 1820 when it
aided in the hatching of the Astronomical Society.
Baily was the backbone of the Society throughout its early
years, as we shall be reminded in dealing with the time of his
death in 1844 (see third decade), and in the eloge by Sir John
Herschel pronounced on that sad occasion ; but we may add here
a few details concerning the voyage to America ( 1795-7), which is
indeed mentioned in the eloge, but scarcely so as to give a just
notion of its character. Indeed, even his intimate friends do not
appear to have been aware of what was involved ; though Baily
had kept a careful journal he did not apparently talk to them about
his experiences. " He was more than commonly reserved in
matters relating to himself : and no old soldier was ever more
chary of referring to anything which would insinuate dangers
faced or hardships endured." So wrote Augustus De Morgan in
1856, in editing the Journal which had been put into his hands.
" In the course of fourteen years of intimate acquaintance I never
arrived at so much knowledge of his adventures as is contained
in the few sentences which formed the sum total of Sir John
Herschel's recollections " (this is an allusion to the paragraph in
the eloge of which mention is made above). " Occasionally, when
some thriving city was mentioned, he would say, c When I passed
that spot it was all forest,' or the like ; but I never heard him
drop a hint that he had calculated, under those trees, the chances
of being scalped or starved. From all I knew of the writer, I feel
sure that the hardship and the risk are both understated."
The risk of our losing even the understatement was also con-
siderable. De Morgan, after some consultation with Airy and
others, put the journal through the press under the title, Journal of
a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America in 1796 and 1797. By
3 o HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
the late Francis Baily, F.R.S., P.R.A.S. (London, Baily Brothers,
Royal Exchange Buildings, 1856), but he did not put a copy in the
R.A.S. library, and we owe the copy we now possess to the kindness
of his son, William (on the occasion of his dining with the R.A.S.
Club, 1911 Nov. 10). It is rendered the more valuable by having
inserted in it various maps found with the journal, some pamphlets
by Baily, some letters, and Baily's attendance card for the Cam-
bridge meeting of the British Association in 1833. The maps,
so innocent of detail, fully bear out the modest remarks of the
traveller just quoted. But a more concrete illustration of what
travel meant in those days may be quoted from the book. On
1796 December 10, the boat in which Baily and his companions
were going down the river Ohio got frozen in near the bank a
situation they accepted with tolerable equanimity. They prepared
to pass the winter there and proceeded to lay in a good stock of
provisions. One or two other boats were with them, so that there
were fourteen or fifteen in all, and there was a daily expedition to
shoot " deer, turkeys, bears, or any other animals fit for food."
The temperature was about 17 below zero. On December 20
they thought there seemed some promise of the ice breaking and
allowing them to proceed on their journey, and accordingly went
to bed in fairly good spirits. Suddenly they were awakened by
a. noise like thunder, and found that the ice was indeed breaking up,
but because the river was rising rapidly. We have seen that Baily
was not a man to make too much of any experiences of his own,
yet this is how he writes about the matter :
All attempts would be feeble to describe the horrid crushing
and tremendous destruction which this event occasioned on the
river. Only conceive a river near 1500 miles long, frozen to a
prodigious depth (capable of bearing loaded wagons) from its
source to its mouth, and this river by a sudden torrent of water
breaking those bands by which it had been so long fettered !
Conceive this vast body of ice put in motion at the same instant,
and carried along with an astonishing rapidity, grating with a most
tremendous noise against the sides of the river, and bearing down
everything which opposed its progress ! the tallest and the stoutest
trees obliged to submit to its destructive fury, and hurried along
with the general wreck ! In this scene of confusion, what was to
be done ?
The practical answer was to unload the boat and get the
things ashore as quickly as possible ; and this, in the middle of
this bitter night, they set about ; but suddenly a large sheet of
ice stove in one side of the boat so that she filled and sank, but
as she was near the shore and almost touched the bottom (the water
being very low) she was not immediately covered. The river was
[820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 31
rising at a very rapid rate, and as we knew that if we once lost sight
of her, we should never see her more, . . . jumping into the boat,
up to our middle in water, we continued to work near three hours
. . . the thermometer was at 17 below zero, and so intense was the
cold that .-. . the moment we raised our legs above the water
(in walking) our stockings froze to them as tight as if bound with a
garter ! In such a situation ... it is a wonder we had not
perished ; and possibly we might had not the river . . . completely
covered our boat and obliged us to desist. Thus went our boat !
and thus went every hope of proceeding on our journey ! Thus
were all our flattering prospects cut short, and none left but the
miserable one of fixing our winter habitation on these inhospitable
shores.
When day appeared they found that their troubles were by no
means over. They had landed the gear on level ground, but
above this the bank was " fifty feet high and nearly perpendicular,"
and the water rising rapidly. They carried the things up one by
one, a few feet at a time, and lodged them behind some tree to pre-
vent their rolling back into the river. When it had ceased rising
they set about fixing up some kind of habitation out of poles and
blankets, and kept a fire burning. " Some of the packages were
so much frozen as to take three days standing constantly before
the fire ere we could get out their contents to dry them." Pre-
sently they found a rough log hut which gave better shelter ; and
they got a boat built for proceeding on their journey when the
river (which froze up again, having been broken up merely by
heavy rains) should allow, which was on February 20. The entry
in the journal on Christmas Day is somewhat in the manner of
a Robinson Crusoe soliloquy.
Here am I in the wilds of America, away from the society of
men, amidst the haunts of wild beasts and savages, just escaped
from the perils of a wreck, in want not only of the comforts, but
of the necessaries of life, housed in a hovel that in my own country
would not be good enough for a pigsty ; at a time, too, when my
father, my mother, my sisters, my friends and acquaintances, in
fact, the whole nation, were feasting upon the best the country
could afford.
Yet he comforts himself with the reflection that he was at
least better off than those who had perished in the flood, or
even than his companions who were at that moment ill with their
experiences, though this meant that he was the only one able to
work. And of course he survived these and other hardships as
we know, and lived to nurture our young Society.
It appears that " one of the objects of his tour was the forma-
tion or extension of commercial connection, probably of some
32 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
house in England. It also appears that during his voyage he gave
formal notice of his intention to apply for the privileges of citizen-
ship, with a view to take up his permanent residence in the United
States " (M.N., 14, 112), but fortunately for us nothing came of
this. On his return to England he seems for a year or two to
have contemplated a life of travel and adventure, and we must
admit that he had good qualifications which seem to have been
shared by other members of his family. Two of his nieces were the
first ladies to make the journey up the Nile to the second cataract
above Wady Haifa, and one of them, Miss Ann Louisa Baily,*
survived to the age of 100 (on 1917 January 17). Again, for-
tunately for us, these plans came to nothing, and about the end of
1799 he was taken into partnership by Mr. Whitmore of the Stock
Exchange. He meant so much to us that the temptation to linger
with him is strong ; but reluctantly we must pass on, referring
those interested to Sir John Herschel's eloge, with the supplement
by De Morgan in M.N., 14, 112.
The beautiful bust which stands near the staircase of the R.A.S.
rooms is the work of Edward Hodges Baily, and was presented
to the Society by Miss Baily, the surviving sister of Francis Baily,
on 1849 February 9 (M.JV., 9, 53)-
His younger brother, Arthur Baily, was also an original member
of our Society, but is a rather shadowy figure. He was born
" about 1787 " (the birthday of Francis is known exactly as
1774 April 28), and died on 1858 July 8. For two years he was
Treasurer of the R.A.S. Club, but his enthusiasm seems to have
been chiefly reflected from his brother.
It is scarcely necessary to say anything here of the Herschels or
of Babbage and of the remaining original members. Sir James
South will appear later, since he became so conspicuous when the
Charter was applied for. But a word may be said of Peter Slawin-
ski, a Pole who happened to be in England for some years, and is
included in the original list as a Fellow, but may perhaps more
appropriately be regarded as our first Foreign Associate. He was
appointed Director of the Vilna Observatory in 1825, but he took
a part in our early meetings and presented a medal of Copernicus
to the Society, which we still have (in the safe). The following
extract from the Bulletin de V Observatoire de Vilno, 1921, gives a
glimpse of him :
* By the kindness first of Mr Hollis and then of Mr B. E. Day, the writer
had the rare pleasure of an interview with this fine old lady on 1917 July 4 ;
and to his delight was presented by her with a copy of Francis Baily's Journal,
which had belonged to her sister, Emily (her companion on the Nile voyage).
She was alert about the war. She " did not want us to kill the Kaiser ; but
she would not much mind if his own people killed him." She died at Esher
on 1917 October 23.
3 o] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 33
Sniadecki remained Rector of the University until 1815 and
Director of the Observatory until 1825. He increased the value
of this Observatory by importing many new instruments.*
After Sniadecki, his disciple, Pietr Slawinski, took his chair and
the direction of the Observatory. He made many observations.
Among other things he determined the latitude of the Observatory
( = 54 40' 59"'i), and we find this value in contemporary astro-
nomical almanacs. He also took share in geodetical measurements.
In 1828 he published a handbook on theoretical and practical
Astronomy. In 1832 the Russian Government closed the Univer-
sity, but the Observatory remained and was entrusted to the
Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. . . . Slawinski retired in
1843. ... In 1876 a fire broke out in the Observatory and caused
some damage ; then the Government closed the Observatory and
gave its instruments and most of the valuable library to the
Observatory of Pulkowa.
If we may venture a little outside the original list, it is worthy
of remark that the Society seems to have owed a good deal in its
early years to explorers and travellers, like Franklin and Parry.
Franklin was away at the actual time of the foundation on his
" Voyage of Discovery to the Northern Coast of America " (1819-
22), but he seems to have joined almost immediately he returned,
for he is entered in the Treasurer's Index as having compounded.
Parry is entered as " non-resident," and, indeed, he was away on
two voyages in 1819-20 and in 1821-23. We have the accounts
of these in our library, but apparently not that of Franklin : yet
his adventures in America and those of his companions remind us
no less than those of Francis Baily how much has happened in the
intervening century. We venture on one sentence from Franklin's
book :
Hepburn having shot a partridge, which was brought to the
house, the Doctor tore out the feathers, and having held it to the
fire a few minutes, divided it into seven portions ; each piece was
ravenously devoured by my companions, as it was the first morsel
of flesh any of us had tasted for thirty-one days,
during which they had been feeding on lichen scratched off the
rocks.
We may also note the instructions given to Captain Basil Hall
and other navigators in the first year of the Society's existence.
Another figure associated with these adventurous days was that of
the Rev. George Fisher, who was appointed astronomer to the
expeditions which set out for the Arctic in 1818, to make pendulum
* Sniadecki was in England in 1787, went to Slough and took lodgings
there in order to see some object through Herschel's telescopes. " He was
a very silent man " (Memoir of Caroline Herschel, p. 75).
3
34 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
determinations and do other scientific work ; but the vessels
Dorothea and Trent encountered a violent gale and had to
put back. Nevertheless, Fisher swung his pendulum in Spitz-
bergen and got good results. In 1821 he was appointed astronomer
(and chaplain also) to Parry's Expedition in search of a North- West
Passage, and he prepared the scientific report on this expedition
in 1825. In 1834 he took charge of the Greenwich Hospital
School with great success, and became a constant attendant at
the meetings of the Society and the dinners of the R.A.S. Club
till his death in 1873.
A picturesque figure of a different kind is that of Dr. Lee of
Hartwell, and an excuse for mentioning him here may be found
in the fact that though he was only the second treasurer of the
Society, and did not succeed Dr. Pearson until 1831, it is due
to him that we have recovered a copy of the original accounts.
On receiving them from Dr. Pearson he had them copied *
very neatly, and apparently returned the original, which has in
any case disappeared. But the copy remained among his books,
and was ultimately presented to the Society a few years ago
by Mrs. Lee, the relative into whose possession they had
passed, on an occasion when it became necessary to remove the
library from Hartwell. The volume published under the title
Speculum Hartwellianum renders it unnecessary to dwell on the
astronomical activities of Dr. Lee or of Admiral Smyth, who
observed with him, but a sidelight is thrown on the old gentleman
by the following extract from Reminiscences (Macmillan, 1922),
by Constance Battersea (a daughter of the second son of N. M.
Rothschild, who married (1877) Cyril Flower, created Lord
Battersea in 1892) :
Hartwell House was an attraction to us in our young years,
and we used periodically to visit its strange old owner, the learned
Dr. Lee. He would take us into his wonderful and crowded museum,
where on one occasion he presented me with a little stuffed bird,
hoping that it might prove the forerunner of a collection of my own,
for he said that the pleasure of collecting, no matter what, was one
of the chief roads that led to a happy life.
On one unforgettable starlight night we were admitted to his
famous observatory and invited to look through the telescope,
receiving much valuable information at the time. To us the
astronomer seemed a very old man, and when, in company with
one of his own years, he came to dine at Aston Clinton, we were not
astonished at seeing the two aged guests of my parents dropping
placidly off to sleep after their repast.
The Hartwell estate has been in the possession of one family
* Perhaps by his secretary, Mr. B. Smith ? See p. 2 i.
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 35
the Lees for seven hundred years. Part of the house is of very
old date, but I believe it was almost entirely rebuilt in the
seventeenth century. One fact will always add greatly to its
interest : from 1809 to 1814 Hartwell was the abode of Louis XVIII.,
the exiled King of France, and his queen, who died there ; with
them came about 180 persons belonging to their household and
Court. Many distinguished names, such as those of the Royal
Dukes of Berry and of Angoulme, also those of Duras, de Gramont,
de Servant, de Blacas, that of the Archbishop of Rheims, etc.,
became well known in the neighbourhood. Indeed, several of the
monarch's companions died at Hartwell and are interred in the little
churchyard belonging to the place.
I have read in Ditchfield's Memories of Old Buckinghamshire
how " the halls, gallery, and larger apartments were often divided
and subdivided into suites of rooms for the use of the members of
the French Court and household, in some instances to the great
disorder and confusion of the mansion. Every outhouse and each
of the ornamental buildings in the park that could be rendered
capable of decent shelter was densely occupied. It was curious to
see how some of the occupants stowed themselves away in the
attics of the house, converting one room into several by the adapta-
tion of light partitions." Moreover, I have been told that a garden
was laid out on the roof, where, besides shrubs and flowers, vege-
tables were grown for the use of the inmates.
PLACE OF MEETING
From the Minutes quoted we see that the preliminary meeting
was held at Freemason's Tavern,and others followed in the hospitable
rooms of the Geological Society. In 1820 November the Society
moved into rooms in Lincoln's Inn Fields, paying an annual rent
of fifty guineas to the Medical and Chirurgical Society, who allowed
them, besides the room for meeting, the use of an attic. It was not,
however, until 1828 that the Society availed itself of this luxury :
in that year a difference with the printers caused them to remove
their stock of publications from their care, and the attic became a
storehouse. Meanwhile, many attempts had been made to find
a more suitable and more permanent home. In 1823 a large room
in the Scottish Hospital, Crane Court, Fleet Street, was reported,
but on enquiry was found to have been already let. In 1824 March
a possible house in Lincoln's Inn Fields was found to be priced at
6000 guineas, and judged, therefore, too large and expensive. In
1824 May the Council resolved
That the Secretaries do insert an advertizement in The Times
and Morning Chronicle Newspapers for a House containing at least
one room of about 30 feet by 20 feet in dimensions as a meeting-
place for the Society ; such house to be situated between Tottenham
36 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
Court Road and Bedford Row, and not more than a quarter of a
mile north of Holborn.
These details of the Society's needs a century ago have an
almost comic aspect to us to-day : modest as they were they could
not be met. Only two answers to the advertisement were forth-
coming : one concerned a house in Newgate Street, which was put
aside without even the formality of an inspection ; the other was
to be inspected, and presumably was found quite unsatisfactory,
as there is no further mention of it. In December of the same year,
Mr. Millington, the Secretary, was requested to confer with the
managers of the London Mechanics' Institution in Southampton
Buildings, but it was reported that the premises were quite un-
suitable. A new Committee on premises was appointed in 1828
April, and soon afterwards (1829 November) the possibility of
finding room in Somerset House began to take shape, ultimately
becoming a reality in 1834.
THE MEMOIRS
No more important decisions were taken in the early years
than those for the printing of papers read to the Society. Regula-
tions for printing papers were adopted on 1821 May n. An
abstract of each paper, made by one of the Secretaries, was to be
read to the Council, who should then decide by ballot whether the
paper be referred to a Committee nominated by the Chairman :
any alterations suggested were to be submitted by one of the
Secretaries to the author (or his representative), and an estimate
obtained for any plates required : and the Council were then to
ballot for printing the paper as amended. We may note that
" if such motion be carried in the affirmative, the author [was to]
be allowed to correct the proof-sheets, if he should desire it."
At a special meeting of the Council summoned for May 25, six of
the papers already read were thus submitted to Committees, three
of which reported favourably in June ; and thus volume 1 of our
Memoirs was prepared. It was resolved (in 1821 June) to print 500
copies of the Memoirs, with 25 extra copies of each paper supplied
gratis to the author : members to be entitled to buy at half-price.
The type was to be " that used in Mr. Colebrooke's Indian Algebra :
and that the size of the page be the same. Which type is denomi-
nated by the printers, Pica : and the size of the page is 7^ inches
long and $iv inches wide." The advertisement which opens each
volume of Memoirs was drawn up. The Minutes of this meeting
conclude with a letter received from Sir Humphry Davy, President
of the Royal Society, which may be transcribed :
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 37
June i, 1821.
SIR, I beg you will return my thanks to the President and
Council of the Astronomical Society of London, for the honour they
have done me in sending me the account of their proceedings, in
which every lover of science must take a strong interest. I am,
Sir, yr. obed. servt., H. DAVY.
To F. Baily, Esq., F.R.S., S.A.S.
We may take it, therefore, that the little friction of the year
before was entirely at an end. The adopted regulations only differ
in detail from those now in force, but one detail is important, viz.
the preparation of an abstract by the Secretaries. This naturally
caused delay, which was at times inconvenient : and in 1825 May
revised regulations were adopted with a view of saving time.
Firstly, the reading of the paper to the Society was taken as the
occasion of the appointment of referees (instead of the reading of
an abstract to Council) ; and secondly, if the referees and chairman
were in favour of publishing the paper at once, they might proceed
without waiting for a Council meeting, provided always that the
matter be reported to Council at their next meeting. Otherwise
the Council would ballot in the ordinary way. It is abundantly
clear from the Minutes that this critical procedure was no empty
formality. Thus on 1829 November 27, no less than five papers which
had been read at the last meeting were rejected by the Committee
and (after ballot) by the Council for printing. Any paper for the
Memoirs is still subjected to ballot, and it is interesting to see how
quickly our regular procedure was got into shape. It is true that
most papers nowadays are printed in the Monthly Notices without
ballot, but it is easy to see how a practice originally adopted for
brief communications has been naturally extended, from its obvious
advantages, to all but very long papers.
At the outset, however, the Memoirs were the only publications
of any kind (with a possible modification mentioned below). The
following notes may be found convenient :
Memoirs, vol. i., is published by Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, and
bears on the title-page the date 1822 ; but this title was issued with
Part I. of the volume (pp. 1-232). Part II. ends with the 4th
Report, dated 1824 Feb. 13, and the list of officers for 1824-5 ; an d
on the last page is the name of the printer (Richard Taylor, Shoe
Lane).
Memoirs, vol. ii., same publisher and printer ; 1826 on title-
page ; ends with Baily's Presidential addresses on 1826 April 14,
and a list of Fellows on 1826, June 19.
But there follows as an Appendix, Baily's Catalogue of 3000
stars.
3 8 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
Memoirs, vol. iii., published by Priestley & Weale, Holborn ;
1829 on title-page. Printed by Richard Taylor, now removed to
Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. Ends with list of Fellows on 1829
February 13. (Minute of Council on this day states that the
volume was closed there because of change of printer.)
Memoirs, vol. iv. ; Priestley & Weale, 1831 ;. printed by J. Moyes,
Castle Street. Ends with list of Fellows on 1831 June 10.
By this time the Monthly Notices had been established, and we
may now turn to their early history, showing incidentally how these
changes of printer and publisher came about.
THE " MONTHLY NOTICES "
The first number of the Monthly Notices is headed with the date
1827 February 9, and contains the Council Report. It has been
generally accepted as indicating that there are no similar records
for the first seven years of the Society's existence.
But in the copy of this number possessed by the writer there is
the imprint " From the Philosophical Magazine and Annals ;
printed by Richard Taylor, Shoe-Lane, London," which naturally
led to an examination of the Philosophical Magazine of that date.
It was found that brief notices of this kind had been regularly
printed therein from the first : the novelty was simply that of
having separate copies struck off for the use of the Fellows. Even
then there was apparently no thought of collecting them in volume
form : this was not done till 1831, and most copies of the first
fourteen Notices are reprints made about that date by a different
printer (J. Moyes, Castle Street, Leicester Square, with Priestley
& Weale as publishers). The copy above mentioned, which
apparently contains the sheets struck off at the time, exhibits
one or two features of special interest. Thus following No. i
there are two copies of No. 2, both dated 1827 March 9, and identical
except for two features : firstly, Roman figures (No. II.) are used
in the first (as in No. I.) and Arabic (No. 2) in the second, and
consistently afterwards : secondly, a whole sentence is omitted
from the later copy. After the words in No. 2 :
M. Gambart exhibits a comparison of the results of these
elements, and of his observations on the 27th, 28th, and 29th of
December,
there follow in the originals (i.e. in the Philosophical Magazine
itself and in the first reprint) the words :
He then adds a few remarks, which need not be recorded, and
congratulates himself and astronomers generally upon the existence
and success of the Astronomical Society of London. " What," he
asks, " may not be expected from so liberal an association ?
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 39
Happy the country where the love of science alone causes so many
men of enlightened minds to combine in such an object ! Happy,
also, those who dwell there ! "
Apparently the modesty of some members of the Society
was shocked by this public commendation and a new reprint was
ordered with the requisite omission. But the words still stand in
the Philosophical Magazine, and there is no harm in recalling the
incident at this date.
The Philosophical Magazine was founded by Alexander Tilloch,
who was joined by Richard Taylor as editor in volume Ix. (1822).
References to the Astronomical Society begin in volume Iv. (1820)
with the announcement of its formation (p. 147), the Address
(p. 201), and a few words about the first ordinary meeting on
March 10 (p. 225). Each monthly number of the Magazine
consisted at that time of exactly eighty pages, and it is easy to
find the references near the end of the number among the doings
of other Societies. But if we turn over the leaves in years preceding
the formation of the Society in 1820, we find that matters of astro-
nomical interest were frequently included. Thus in volume 1. (1817)
there is a list of errata in the Nautical Almanac and a somewhat
vigorous criticism of the compilers of that work, so that the Board
of Longitude was a deaf adder before 1820. On p. 407 there is
a paper by Count Laplace on the " Rings of Saturn," suggesting
that the stationary appearance of parts of the ring (which we know
nevertheless to be revolving) may be due to slight relative inclina-
tions of separate rings to each other. In volume Hi. we note that a
useful monthly list of astronomical phenomena given in previous
volumes was for some reason dropped, though the meteorological
information which regularly followed the list is retained. In volume
liii., however, we get information about comets and ephemerides of
the four minor planets. Such notes and references continued
for many years, so that a student of astronomical history about
the beginning of the century should not neglect the Philosophical
Magazine, or, as it became in 1827, tne Magazine and Annals of
Philosophy.
Tilloch was sole editor in 1820, and the early Notices are thus
due to him. But on the arrival of Richard Taylor in 1822 as joint
editor, they become distinctly fuller, in which we may probably
trace his influence. But it was not until 1827 that separate copies
were struck off for distribution, and apparently the move came from
within the Society. The Council Report of 1828 February 8
(M.N., 1, 49) seems clear on this point :
One of the first acts of the Council of the year elapsed, was to
enter into an arrangement with Mr. Taylor, the printer to the
40 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
Society, and who is also one of the editors of the Philosophical
Magazine, for the publication of a series of monthly notices of its
proceedings, and for the supply of a sufficient number of copies of
them, in succession, for distribution among the members. The
convenience and advantages of this plan have been sufficiently
proved by the trial which has been given it, and it will, of course,
be continued.
[There follows a summary of the advantages of the plan, which
need scarcely be reproduced here, as the passage is readily
accessible.]
But before the first volume was completed differences of opinion
arose between the Council and the printer on the question of cost
of printing, and also about insurance of the stock, which, as we have
seen, they took possession of themselves and housed in their attic.
Estimates were obtained from John Weale, trading as a publisher
under the style of Priestley & Weale, and were accepted. Moyes
was the printer employed by this firm, and a letter from him is
entered on the Council Minutes stating that he fully understood
that he was to have no separate claim on the Society. Weale's
estimates are given as replies to an elaborate series of questions.
Part I. of volume 3 of the Memoirs was already set in type (by
Taylor), and was sent with enquiries what would be the cost per
sheet (for 500 copies)
if all were like p. 132 . . . Reply i, i6s.
if part were tabular, like p. 38 . 2, los.
if all were tabular, like p. 70 . . ,, 3, 43.
P. 35 5 2S -
and so forth : and then it is asked what would be the charge " for
200 copies of the Monthly Notices, including paper, it being under-
stood that you may dispose of the copyright as you may think
proper " ? Answer, " This I would undertake to give the Astro-
nomical Society as a return for their copy and copyright."
Weale's estimates were accordingly accepted, and the arrange-
ment with the former printer (Taylor) and publisher (Baldwin)
terminated in 1828-9. The dates for different transactions
naturally vary a little. Taylor finished printing volume iii. of the
Memoirs, but it was handed over to Weale for publication. The
last Monthly Notice printed by Taylor is that of 1828 June, which
is so lengthy that it was divided into two for printing in the
Philosophical Magazine. The November M.N., printed by Moyes,
reappears indeed in the Philosophical Magazine, but not till 1829
March : that for 1828 December not at all. A few extracts are
given from the January M.N. in the Philosophical Magazine for
1829 June, and nearly all the February M.N. (Council Report)
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 41
in Philosophical Magazine for 1829 July. But the reproduction
becomes irregular from this time.
We may now give an extract from the Council Report of 1834
February 14 (M.N., 3, 21), which shows how the Society finally
took this useful publication under its own wing :
The second volume of the Monthly Notices of the proceedings of
this Society has been terminated rather more suddenly than was
anticipated, in consequence of the disinclination of the publisher
to continue that work on terms originally proposed. The Council,
however, finding that many fellows were desirous that the Notices
should still be carried on, have directed them to be printed in
future at the expense of the Society ; which, although an additional
annual charge, will, they trust, be approved by the meeting.
The several numbers, as they appear, will be forwarded as usual to
Fellows residing within the limits of the threepenny post.
The Monthly Notices thus had a somewhat chequered origin.
It is a little sad that they should have so early been separated from
the printer who started them ; but it is some satisfaction to know
that volume 1, though it bears the name of another printer and
publisher, begins as a transcription from the Philosophical Magazine,
and can be underpinned by similar reprints back to the foundation
of the Society. These have been copied out, and may perhaps,
someday, be published as a volume zero.
It is of interest to note a further few details in connection with
the early Notices. The type originally used was larger than that
used subsequently, and the fashion of printing at the foot of the
page the first word of the next page was retained in the original
issue of the first three Notices and then dropped. It was never
used in Moves' reprint. The Philosophical Magazine uses the
spelling phenomena, which is reprinted as phenomena ; and the
capitals of Continental Astronomers disappear in the reprint. Such
changes were apparently made by the printer and not by any
reviser : for there is a sentence at the opening of the number for
1828 June 13, which should have caught the eye of any careful
reader, viz.
From a mean of 15 measurements, he makes the apparent dis-
tance on the left side equal to n"-272, and on the right side equal
to n"-390 ; the difference is o"-2i5.
There is clearly a slip here, but the occasion of the reprint
for revising it was not taken. The figures 1 1^272 and n^go are
the results for the first day, copied inadvertently, instead of the
means, ii"-O73 and n"-288.
By a curious coincidence the origin of the Monthly Notices,
42 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
like that of the Society itself, was embarrassed by a Royal death.
Volume 1 opens with the February meeting 1827, and the
Philosophical Magazine contains no reference to a January
meeting. The minutes of Council show that it was not held in
consequence of the death of the Duke of York. The Council met
at four o'clock, and the President (Baily) "announced that in
consequence of the death of the Duke of York, he had deemed it
necessary to put off the ordinary meeting, which was to have
taken place this evening (1827 January 12), and had in conse-
quence given the earliest notice thereof to the members through
the medium of the public newspapers, the ' Times,' ' Post,'
4 Chronicle,' and ' Courier,' and further stated that he had not
postponed the meeting of the Council, it being absolutely necessary
that Auditors should be appointed without delay, and the Report
prepared for the Annual General Meeting in February."
Colby and Sheepshanks were accordingly appointed auditors,
and the President and Secretaries requested to prepare the Report.
In these days the appointment of auditors is no longer a matter
for Council, but for the Fellows generally : and the Report is
prepared without any special request.
THE MEDALS
In 1826 February a somewhat distressing situation was reported
to the Council. A number of medals had been struck (at the Mint,
as was decided in 1823 December) from the dies for future use,
and should be in their possession, but could not be traced, the
deficiency being no less than three gold and seventeen silver
medals. Mr. Millington (who had been Secretary at the time of
the receipt of the medals, but had since resigned) had been written
to more than once, but no reply had been received from him.
However, the alarm was needless. By the next meeting of Council
the dilatory correspondent had replied that he had indeed in his
possession the " silver proof " medal which had acted as pattern,
but that the others would probably be found " in the place in which
they were deposited " : and although this was not further specified
in the Minutes, possibly for prudential reasons, the missing medals
were produced and laid on the Council table. The Council in their
relief did not forget to direct formal application to be made to
Mr. Millington for the proof medal, which was ultimately also
recovered.
Comparison of one medal with another revealed some difference
in weight : thus two gold medals were found to have a mean
weight of 2 oz. 2 dwts. 12 gr., whereas one previously awarded to
Mr. Babbage had weighed 2 oz. 7 dwts. 20 gr., the difference of
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 43
5 dwts. 7^ gr. in weight, corresponding to i, 73. 7d. in value.
It was resolved that the medals in future should have a uniform
value of 10 of the currency, and about the same time (1827
November) it was resolved that all proposals for medals should
be made in December and considered in January, an approxima-
tion to the procedure which ultimately took shape.
In the earlier years proposals for medals had not followed any
regular rule, and had been more numerous than they ultimately
became. It was one of the intentions of the newly formed Society
to stimulate the progress of Astronomy by proposing prize ques-
tions for solution, but no great success attended these efforts.
The questions proposed were often fully worthy of attention, or
so we should judge in the light of our riper experience. Thus in
1824 April it was decided to offer a silver medal for a stellar photo-
meter, and in response a suggestion was made by one of the Green-
wich assistants, but apparently not approved. Many years were
to elapse before a satisfactory solution of this problem was
approached ; but looking back now, from our presumably deceptive
standpoint, it is puzzling to think that the need was formulated
and attempts made to meet it, with so little success. With regard
to other problems suggested at the same time, such as the provision
of tables of the newly discovered minor planets, and the integra-
tion of the equations in the problem of three bodies, we can under-
stand the reasons for failure in response ; but why should not
someone have devised some kind of photometer, even in 1824 ?
The first medals were presented at the Annual General Meeting
of the Society on 1824 February 13, though the awards had already
been announced at the previous November meeting. Two gold
medals were given, one to Babbage for his (first) calculating
machine, and one to Encke for his determination of the elliptic
-orbit of the comet called after him. Two silver medals were
given to Charles Riimker and to Pons, both for discoveries of comets.
We may here refer to the list of recipients of the medals given at
the end of this volume, or to the lists of the awards printed at the
end of nearly every volume of the Memoirs down to the present
time. We shall here merely mention that silver medals were only
given to two other recipients, to Stratford and to Beaufoy, both in
1827. I n I ^26 and 1827 the medals were presented at Special
General Meetings in the month of April ; but beginning with
1828 they have always been presented at the Annual General
Meeting in February, though this is merely a custom and is not a
consequence of any bye-law. The presidential addresses delivered
on these occasions, which at first were very short, became gradually
longer, and have always been valuable and interesting summaries
of the work done by the medallists.
44 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
THE SECRETARIES
If the Council worked hard at the outset the Secretaries must
have been taxed severely, and generally found their labours too
serious after a few years. Even the energetic F. Baily, who (with
Babbage) initiated the office, only held out a couple of years. He
usually signed the Minutes as Secretary (in addition to the signa-
ture of the Chairman) ; but there are several omissions, and the
Minutes of 1820 December 8 were signed on 1821 January 12 by
C. Babbage as Secretary (though Baily was present on both occa-
sions). He gave notice in 1822 March of his desire to resign at
the end of the session (June), and at a special meeting held on
November i, Millington was elected Secretary, and Baily invited
to continue attending the meetings of Council " that they may
avail themselves of the benefit of his advice " : he accordingly
did attend, the fact being specially mentioned on each occasion.
The handwriting (uniform up to that point) then changes, and the
minutes are not afterwards signed by either Secretary.
Babbage also wished to resign in 1822 February, but agreed
under pressure to accept office with Millington. The early holders
of the office were :
F. Baily, 1820-23. O. Gregory, 1824-28.
Babbage, 1820-24. Stratford, 1826-31.
Millington, 1823-25. Sheepshanks, 1828-31.
In 1824 March (at one of the resumed Council meetings after
the evening meeting) it was resolved " that in consequence of the
increased business of the Society in correcting press and various
other ways, it has become necessary that an Assistant Secretary
or clerk should be employed, and Mr. W. S. Stratford, R.N., being
recommended by Mr. Gompertz and Mr. Frend as a person highly
qualified to fill this office, was appointed Assistant Secretary to
the Society from this day until the commencement of the vacation
in June next, and that he be remunerated for his services in such
manner as the Council shall determine."
Knowing the present importance of the office thus initiated,
we learn with surprise that the start was in this instance not
followed up. In 1825 May, Millington resigned one of the Secre-
taryships and Stratford (who was paid in all 40 for his services)
offered to fill the gap in an honorary capacity. The offer was
accepted, but Stratford's name does not appear in the lists of those
present at the meetings until 1826 March, when he had been
regularly elected Secretary. In 1825 November, however, he was
elected a Fellow of the Society, and in consideration of the " close
and unremitting attention which he had constantly paid to the
[820-30]
ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 45
luties of the office of Honorary Secretary," the Treasurer was
directed to regard him as a Life Member, without payment of fees.
There is no further mention of an Assistant Secretary until 1829
January 29, when we find it
Resolved that the Secretaries be empowered to employ an
Assistant.
But nothing more definite occurs in the Minutes until 1830
November 19, when steps were taken resulting in the appoint-
ment of Mr. James Epps, as recounted in the next Chapter.
STANDING COMMITTEES (INSTRUMENTS AND LIBRARY)
In 1829 January two Committees were appointed to report
upon the Instruments and on the Library respectively. They
were to be reappointed in each following January. The latter
gradually became a permanent institution, but there is to-day
nothing in place of the former. It may therefore be well to recall
the importance of this matter of instruments in the early days.
The first considerable present of instruments was from Lieut.
George Beaufoy. who at the death of his father, Colonel Mark
Beaufoy (a silver medallist of the Society in 1827 February for
his observations of Jupiter's Satellites " with a five-feet achromatic
by Dollond ") handed over
One 4-feet transit by Gary,
One altazimuth by Gary,
A sidereal and a mean solar clock,
in recognition of which valuable presents the donor was elected
a Life Member, without payment of fees (M.N., 1, 51). At the
adjourned evening meeting of Council after the presentation, 1827
June 8, Captain Smyth, R.N., applied for the loan of the instru-
ments. His request was referred to the Committee of the President
( J. F. W. Herschel), Beaufort, Baily, and Colby, which had already
been appointed to deal with the handing over of the instruments
and is referred to as the " Instrument Committee." This no doubt
led to the establishment of the more permanent Committee some
eighteen months later. In 1828 December 8, Dr. W. H. Wollaston
presented a telescope made by Peter Dollond in 1771 : expressing
the hope that it might be used. He had himself used it for " trying
and perfecting his method of adjusting the triple achromatic
object glass " : and it was forthwith lent to Mr. Maclear, of Biggies-
wade, for observing occultations. Dr. Wollaston was proposed as
a Fellow in 1828 June, and would in the ordinary course have been
balloted for in December ; but the " alarming state of his health
and high probability of his dissolution previous to the December
46 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
meeting induced the Council to recommend to the meeting a
departure from the established rule," and he was unanimously
elected on November 14, making his present on December 8, and
dying on December 22 (M.N., 1, 102-4).
Another valuable present of a 2-feet altitude circle divided on
gold, which had belonged to the Rev. Lewis Evans, was made by
Dr. Lee. Thus there was work for an instrument Committee,
and they drew up regulations, approved by the Council, for the use
of the instruments (M.N., 1, 121). In these printed regulations
provision is made for marks of identification, but a special addition
was made by Council on 1829 February 6, which may seem to us
to-day a little drastic, viz. :
That on both surfaces of an object-glass of a telescope there be
written with a diamond the words " Astronomical Society of
London."
The addition is represented by the phrase in brackets in regu-
lation 2, loc. cit. ; and Dr. Wollaston's telescope was at once sent to
Mr. Dollond to be marked accordingly.
In connection with the Library Committee we may note De
Morgan's offer to the Council in 1829 June, to " form a Catalogue
of the Society's Books," which was gratefully accepted.
THE BOOK OF SIGNATURES
In 1828, William Henry, Duke of Clarence, Lord High Admiral,
was elected as the 30ist Fellow of the Society, and the occasion
seems to have been taken to purchase the book in which the
Fellows sign their names at the admission ceremony, for we have
a note of Booth's charges for an " autograph book."
The name of the Duke of Clarence was the first signed in
this book, but it stands as William IV. The entries on the Royal
page are :
William R., Patron. Victoria, R.I.
William. George, R.I.
Augustus Frederick.
These names are subscribed immediately under the following
declaration, from which they might have been supposed specially
exempted :
We, the Undersigned, being elected Members of the Astronomical
Society of London, do hereby promise that We will be governed by
the Regulations of the said Society as they are now formed, or as
they may be hereafter altered, amended, or enlarged. That we
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 47
will advance the objects of the said Society as far as shall be in our
power : and that We will attend the usual meetings of the Society
as often as we conveniently can. Provided that whenever We or
any of us shall signify in writing to the Society that We are desirous
of withdrawing our names therefrom, We shall, after the payment of
any annual contribution which may be due by us at that period, be
free from this obligation.
After a few blank pages the three following names and date
are entered on a separate page for some unknown reason :
El Conde de Montemolin.
June n, 1847.
General Montenegro.
Le Chevalier de Berard.
No mention is made of these gentlemen in the Monthly Notice
for 1847 June n, nor in the index to the volume of M.N. : the only
Associate elected recently was Le Verrier. It may be presumed
that three distinguished visitors were present at the meeting and
were asked to inscribe their names on a page which lay just outside
the list of Fellows. This begins on the following page, room being
left at the top of the page for the declaration to be filled in (on
each page) ; but this has never been done.
The first names in the list of Fellows are those of H. T. Cole-
brooke, Francis Baily, John F. W. Herschel, Davies Gilbert, William
Pearson, etc. etc.
After the acquisition of the Royal Charter a new declaration
was written out and a new list of signatures was started on p. 7,
many Fellows signing afresh (e.g. F. Baily, B. Gompertz, and
Edward Riddle occur in the first dozen names of both lists).
The first name of the new list is that of Francis Baily. But the
existence of two lists has produced some confusion, the book
having apparently been opened on more than one occasion at the
wrong place ; for the name preceding Baily's (i.e. the last on p. 6) is
the modern one of
E. B. Knobel for Mr. J. H. Honeyburne.
On p. 8 someone at some time has upset the ink, but all the signa-
tures show through quite well.
ASSOCIATES
It has already been remarked that we may regard Peter
Slawinski as the first Associate Member. The first Associate to
be elected in the ordinary way was Biot, proposed in 1820 June
and elected in December. Seven others were proposed in Novem-
48 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30
ber and elected in January ; and the list of Associates printed on
1821 February 9 thus contains nine names :
Jean Bapt Biot, Paris. William Olbers, Bremen.
Alexis Bouvard, Paris. Peter Slawinski, Wilna.
John B. J. Delafnbre, Paris. J. D. Vallot, Dijon.
Chas. F. Gauss, Gottingen. Hen John Walbeck, Abo.
C. Louis Harding, Gottingen.
It is possible that the presence of Slawinski in England at
the time of the original meeting, and his presence among the
fourteen who met on January 12, may have suggested the status
of Associate Members ; but it will be noted that no distinction is
drawn between his name and the others in the Minutes of January
12 and those of February 8 ; the numeration continues in this sense.
APPENDIX TO DECADE 1820-30 (Chapter I)
(i) Although the project of this History has been kept in mind
for several years in order to make as complete a research as possible,
it is inevitable that some references should only be discovered just
too late. After the MS. had been sent to the printer Miss Herschel
kindly sent me a scrap of a letter from Sheepshanks to Sir John
Herschel. Judging by another scrap, which implores Sir John to
burn the letter (of which accordingly little more survives beyond
this injunction), the remainder of the letter below was probably
destroyed, including the date ; but it was almost certainly written
early in 1848, when Sheepshanks must have been writing the
obituary notice of Pearson, printed in M.N. 8, 69. The letter
and the notice shed light on one another, and the letter is valuable
as emphasising the difficulty that was found, less than thirty years
after the foundation, in recovering the exact details of our early
history. Pearson and Baily were both dead, and they alone appear
to have known the facts. Sheepshanks apparently took great
pains to ascertain them, and might have hoped to get information
from Sir John Herschel, if from anyone, but apparently the attempt
failed.
The following is the portion of the letter referred to :
. . . obedient of slaves, it is most conspicuously seen when I
am ordered to do what I like. Seriously I think all these proposals
are good so far as they go. I should object exceedingly to stepping
out of our proper business, but I see no harm in a modest suggestion
which binds the advised person to nothing, and which is so indirect
that it need not be heeded except by a willing person. I am not sure
whether the reticentia of good and sensible men is not the cause of
much of the mischief done by charlatans. We blame people for
being humbugged, without considering that humbug has been the
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 49
only pabulum offered to them. So please let us to some extent
consider ourselves a power, a very modest one, confining ourselves
merely to discriminating praise, but assuming tacitly that we can
discriminate and that our praise is worth having.
Thank you for your note with Babbage's recollections. I
have tried to do justice to both Pearson and Baily, but I own that
I have leant a little against my inclinations. I wish I could have
made out who called the first meeting on Jan. 12, 1820. Stokes
thinks with Babbage that Baily had the principal share, and
remembers that he proposed Danl. Moore as one of the Committee of
eight to keep out Dr. Kelly. If so much had been discussed in
Blackman Street before this meeting as B. supposes, I cannot
account for not including South in the committee of eight out of
a meeting of 14. South was not in the first Council. Hence I
must suppose that the active discussions at Blackman Street are
later than the foundation. Perhaps we shall get more light in time.
Best regards to Lady H.
Yours very dutifully,
R. SHEEPSHANKS.
(2) After this chapter had been printed, Dr. Dreyer drew my
attention to another instance of the ill-luck which befel Waterston
(see pp. 27-28). In 1850 he published a paper " On a Graphical
Mode of Computing the Excentric Anomaly " (M.N., 10, 169).
About fourteen years later the method was re-discovered by
Dubois (A.N., 1404) and has been called by his name. The injustice
was first noticed by T. J. J. See (M.N., 56, 54).
(3) To Dr. Dreyer I also owe a reference to Sprat's History of
the Royal Society, from which it appears that a complete survey of
the sky was not contemplated for the first time in 1820 (see p. 6),
for " they (the R.S.) have suggested the making a perfect survey,
map, and table of all the fixed stars within the zodiac, both visible
to the naked eye, and discoverable by a 6-foot telescope with a
large aperture. . . . This has been approved and begun, several
of the Fellows having had their portions of the heavens allotted
to them."
The date of Sprat's History is 1667.
CHAPTER II
THE DECADE 1830-1840. (BY J. L. E. DREYER)
1. IN 1830 February, when the Society had existed for ten years,
it was generally felt that it ought to obtain a Charter of incorpora-
tion in order to secure the property already acquired or which
might be acquired, and to insure the appropriation of that pro-
perty to the particular uses for which it was destined.* A small
committee appointed by the Council to look into this matter,
reported the following month that they had learned that the
expenses would to a great extent depend on the number of names
introduced in the Charter. They had seen some recent charters,
in which every necessary object had been fully attained by the
insertion of one name only, that of the President, and of very few
clauses. The amount of fees would come to about 270 and the
law charges would not exceed 50.
Subscriptions to cover these expenses were therefore invited
from the Fellows, and in a few months nearly 400 were collected.
Eventually the expenses only amounted to 268, as Mr. Henry
Hoppe transacted the legal business gratuitously .j- In 1830 May
the President (South, since 1829 February) was empowered to
sign the petition to the King for the grant of a Charter, while a
committee was appointed to examine the Bye-laws of the Society
and to propose any alterations and additions that might become
necessary. The matter dragged on ; in the following November
it was reported to the Council that there had been some delay
from unforeseen causes. But on January 14, South announced
that he had attended the Levee on December 15, when the
King inserted his name in the autograph book as Patron of the
Society, and that in consequence the Society would now become the
Royal Astronomical Society. At the same meeting of the Council
the Charter Committee reported that they had settled the draft,
and that a clause had betn inserted, providing that no Fellow
who had filled the office of President for two successive years
* This question had already been raised in 1825, but no effective action
was taken.
f An unappropriated balance of i 29, 1 8s. i od. was handed to the Treasurer
for the general purposes of the Society in 1832 February.
So
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 51
should be again eligible until the expiration of one year from the
termination of his office.
This provision and the long delay in getting the Charter pro-
duced an awkward situation. To save expense, South's name only
had been mentioned in the Charter, and in a very prominent
manner. It begins thus :
Whereas Sir James South, of the Observatory, Kensington, in
the county of Middlesex, Knight, has by his Petition, humbly
represented unto us, that he, together with others of our loyal
subjects, did, in the year 1820, form themselves into a Society. . . .
And further on it is ordered :
.... that the first members of the Council shall be elected within
six calendar months after the date of this our Charter ; and that
the said Sir James South shall be the first President of the said
body politic and corporate, and shall continue such until the
election as aforesaid.
Before the Charter was ready, the time of the Annual General
Meeting of the Society came round again (1831 February n).
The draft of the Charter was read and approved, and Officers and
Council were elected as usual. Although the unborn Charter
said that South was to be the first President of the newly incor-
porated Society, it also ordered that nobody should be President
for three years in succession ; and Brinkley, Bishop of Cloyne,
was accordingly elected President.* But it must have been felt
soon after, that this election of a President and Council was of
doubtful legality. The Charter was at last signed by the King
on March 7.j On the igth the Council agreed to issue a circular,
explaining that as doubts had arisen as to an informality in sum-
moning a Special General Meeting for March u, no business
had been transacted on that day ; but that another General
Meeting would be held on April 6 to decide on the acceptance
of the Charter, and in case of such acceptance to elect Council
and determine on bye-laws.
It was evidently a severe blow to South, that he was not to
be the first President of the Royal Astronomical Society. He was
present at two Council meetings in March, when Baily (in the
absence of Brinkley) was in the Chair ; but he absented himself
on April 6, when he got Stratford to announce that " he was
desirous of retiring for the present year." As Barlow also wished
* Brinkley had vacated the Professorship of Astronomy at Dublin in 1827
on being appointed Bishop of Cloyne. It was said in Ireland that " he might
thank his stars " for his promotion.
t Printed at the beginning of volume 5 of the Memoirs ; also separately
in 8vo in 1831 and several times, last in 1908.
52 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40
to withdraw on account of being unable to attend, the names of
Tiarks and Sheepshanks were substituted. At the Special General
Meeting the same day the Charter was read, after which Baily
quitted the Chair. " Sir James South, as the President named
in the Charter, was then called for to take the Chair, and on its
being ascertained that he was not present, it was resolved that
Mr. Bryan Donkin be requested to preside," which he did. The
Bye-laws were then read and submitted in sections for approval,
after which the new Council was re-elected with the two modi-
fications mentioned.*
South never again served on the Council, and after some years
never appeared at the meetings of the Society. At the General
Meeting in 1834, when no medal was awarded, he moved that the
Council be recommended to give a gold medal to Stratford for
the reconstructed Nautical Almanac ; but an amendment was
passed, censuring the irregularity of this motion. This was
probably the last appearance of South at any meeting of a Society
with many of whose members he was now at open feud. The
cause of this was his quarrel with the firm of Troughton & Simms
and the law-suit arising out of it. As this created a great deal of
sensation and has been much misrepresented by South, it seems
desirable to give a short account of it here.f
South after doing good work with smaller instruments, chiefly
on double stars, erected an Observatory at Camden Hill, Kensing-
ton, about 1826. In 1829 he secured what was then the largest
object-glass in existence, made by Cauchoix, of nf inches aperture
and 19 feet focal length. He entrusted Troughton with the task
of constructing a mounting, and had a large dome built for it.J
In the autumn of 1831, when the mounting was nearly finished,
* South had shown his ill -humour already at the February meeting, when
presenting the medal to Kater, whose invention of the vertical collimator he
" damned with faint praise." In the Memoir of Aug. De Morgan, p. 43, is
a quotation from a letter (undated) from Smyth to De Morgan, in which he
hopes " that the Council will take effectual steps to repel every disorderly
attempt to impute motives or impugn its conduct " ; but no particulars are
given.
t In addition to the Memoir of De Morgan, the sources of the following
account are, first, a pamphlet entitled A Letter to the Board of Visitors of the
Greenwich R. Observatory in Reply to the Calumnies of Mr Babbage, by the Rev.
R. Sheepshanks : London, 1854; 37pp., 8vo. Secondly, the privately printed
correspondence between South and Troughton & Simms, from 1832 May 16
to 1833 June 26, 84 pp. 8vo, interleaved and with thirty blank pages at the
end ; bound in boards. There is no title-page, but on the first page is the
word " Appendix " in big letters, which word also forms the heading on
every page. At the beginning South has written, " Most confidential."
$ The telescope was erected on a temporary stand at the end of January
1 830, and on February 13, John Herschel discovered with it the sixth star of the
trapezium in the nebula of Orion. On the morning of May 14, Comet I.
1830 and Uranus, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn were viewed with the " 2o-feet
achromatic " (see Monthly Notices, 1, pp. 153 and 180-181).
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 53
invitations were issued to prominent men to be present at the
inauguration of the great telescope on November 26, by the Duke
of Wellington. But the invitations were countermanded, as the
shutters of the dome were unsatisfactory ; and though the tele-
scope was erected in 1832 January, we do not hear of any ceremony
having taken place. This was no doubt because South at once
declared his strong dissatisfaction with everything. In a letter
to Schumacher (dated June 22) he pronounced the dome to be
" a national disgrace " and the polar axis " a decided failure."
In the following July, South went to Dorpat to see for himself
if Struve's equatoreal really was as steady as alleged, returning
in the beginning of November. An acrimonious correspondence
between South and Troughton & Simms, which had commenced
in the previous spring, was now resumed with great vigour and,
thanks to South's ill-temper, went from bad to worse. Every
obstacle was put in the way of the experiments and attempts to
strengthen the mounting, by which its makers endeavoured to
rectify the faults found with it, a task which turned out to be
hopeless owing to the utter impossibility of getting South to listen
to reason.
The mounting was of the so-called English form. Judging
by two sketches of it long afterwards published by Sheepshanks,*
the upper and lower pivots were joined by what looks like two pair
of semi-elliptical hoops. Each pair were in the middle connected
by a St. Andrew's cross, in the centre of which were the supports
of the pivots of the telescope, which was suspended like a huge
transit instrument. The fault found with it was this : when the
instrument was turned a little on its axis and then let go, a series
of about a dozen short, quick vibrations followed, each lasting
about 0-3 or 0-4 second. This was remedied by Sheepshanks by
altering the bearing of the lower pivot. But now, when the instru-
ment was turned in R.A. by laying hold of the telescope (it was
quite steady when moved by the hour-circle) a vibration not
unlike the former was discovered. This was obviously due to a
twist in the great polar frame, in the construction of which no
provision whatever had been made against twist. Sheepshanks
therefore joined the two stays on each side of the telescope by
pieces of wood parallel to the hour-circle ; bound these together
with diagonal bracing, and finally covered the outside with a thin
sheeting of boards parallel to the polar axis. " The instrument
now looked as if it was made up of two decked boats, and in my
opinion was handsomer than it was originally." Experiments
with weights applied at the sides of the upper and lower ends of
the polar axis showed that the twisting had quite disappeared.
* In the pamphlet issued in 1854.
54 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40
The instrument had thus been freed from the imperfections
complained of, but South remained obstinate, stopped further
work and continued to refuse to pay Troughton's bill. Proceed-
ings were therefore commenced towards the end of 1833 to compel
him to do so ; but as so many technical questions were involved,
the court recommended arbitration, which was agreed to. Mr.
William Henry Maule, who was made arbitrator, had been Senior
Wrangler in 1810 ; he became afterwards a Justice of the Common
Pleas.* Counsel for Troughton & Simms was Mr. Starkie (Senior
Wrangler in 1803), with Sheepshanks as his adviser ; for South
was Mr. Drinkwater Bethune, a high wrangler of 1823 (Airy's
year).f Maule at once insisted that Troughton & Simms should
be allowed to finish their work according to the plan proposed by
Sheepshanks, but only to be paid for if successful. In 1834 July*
after most of the time allowed had been spent on getting a screw
made and the clock put up, if the instrument was shown to and
tested by Pond and Donkin, who had to acknowledge that it was
perfectly fit for the work it was intended for, viz. micrometric
measures of double stars. Measures of several pairs were success-
fully taken by Airy and others.
The legal proceedings went on for a couple of months longer,
and in 1834 December the whole claim was awarded, including
payment for the additions. But although the instrument had been
proved to be satisfactory, South was not to be turned from his
desire of posing as a martyr. He smashed the whole mounting to
pieces, and in 1836 December advertised the fragments for sale
by auction, by means of a scurrilous poster, in which the R.A.S.,
Troughton & Simms, and " their Assistants, Mr. Airy and the Rev.
R. Sheepshanks," came in for a good deal of abuse. His folly
cost him fully 8000. Lord Rosse offered to design and even to
make an equatoreal for him, but he declined. We get an
insight into his mind through a conversation he had with the
American astronomer, O. M. Mitchel, in 1842. Exhibiting what
he called the wreck of all his hopes (fragments of the mounting),
South said in reply to a remark that the telescope might yet be
mounted : " No, Struve has reaped the golden harvest among
the double stars and there is little now for me to hope or expect." ||
* It is a great pity that no record is left of the proceedings, as Maule is
said to have been probably the greatest wit on the English Bench. For a
delightful account of him, see What the Judge Thought, by E. A. Parry
(London, 1922).
f Held afterwards a high Government appointment in India; died 1850.
Wrote lives of Galileo and Kepler in the Library of Useful Knowledge, and
with Sir John Lubbock a little book " On Probability," in the same series.
t Described by Sheepshanks in a paper, M.N., 3, pp. 40-46.
According to Robinson, Proc. Roy. Soc., 16, xlvi. (Obituary of South).
|| Publications of the Yerkes Observatory, 1, xiv.
SIR JAMES SOUTH
(1785-1867)
To face p. 54. ;
1830-
4 o] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 55
South was in the habit of strolling up and down his garden in the
evening, shouting his grievances at the top of his voice to some
friend, while people from the neighbourhood were regularly
enjoying themselves on the other side of the wall by listening to
his ravings. This was certainly easier than to use a large telescope
to try to rival the excellent work done by Struve. Fortunately
he did not destroy the object-glass, but presented it to the Univer-
sity of Dublin in 1863, when Lord Rosse was installed as Chancellor
of the University. A few years later it was mounted as an
equatoreal at Dunsink.
We have given a rather full account of this affair of South's
telescope, although it only indirectly concerned our Society, as
the details of it are but little known and, for the sake of Troughton's
reputation, deserve to be put in a proper light. This is the more
necessary, as South had a good name as a practical astronomer ;
and it should therefore not be forgotten that his charge against
Troughton of having failed to make a proper mounting for a
1 9-foot telescope was not justified. Of course, his contemporaries
knew when he was not to be taken seriously ; so that for instance
his grave accusations against the President and Council of the
Royal Society in 1830 were quietly ignored.* We shall close this
account of his vagaries by quoting the following characteristic
anecdote about him. Writing in 1836, De Morgan describes how,
in the course of a lecture at the Royal Institution " by a starlight
Knight," the audience were told " how George III., surrounded by
his astronomers, went to Kew to see an occupation, forgoing the
stag-hunt which was going on ; how a cloud hid the moon, and how
the pious King, without a single murmur against Providence
(a point dwelt upon as remarkable), turned the telescope at the
hunters, and saw the stag killed between the two horizontal
2. While the Society was waiting for its Charter, the help of
the Council was asked by the Admiralty on a most important
subject, the reform of the Nautical Almanac.
The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris had
appeared since the year 1767. It was " published by order of
* Weld's Hist, of the R. Soc., 2, 457- South's pamphlet, Charges against
the President and Council of the Royal Society," is dated 1830 November u.
He says he had promised to write a book on the subject, but the unceasing
attention which the erection of his large equatoreal had demanded, had pre-
vented it.
f Memoir of De Morgan, p. 82 (in a letter to Peacock). There are two other
versions of the story in R. H. Scott's " History of the Kew Observatory,"
Proc R. S., 39, 45. Either the occultation took place in the daytime, or the
stag-hunt in the night.
56 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40
the Commissioners of Longitude," but Maskelyne was responsible
for it from the beginning till his death in 1811. During the next
seven years nobody in particular seems to have looked after it
(though the Astronomer Royal was still supposed to be the editor),
and it lost the character for accuracy which the work had hitherto
enjoyed. It was said in the House of Commons in 1818 (and
could not be denied) that it had become " a bye-word amongst
the literati of Europe." This was said during a debate on a bill
for reorganising the Board of Longitude. But this Board was,
even when thus renovated, an anachronism. The members, who
met only four times a year and then only for a very short time,
were very numerous and included many whose opinion on questions
of astronomy or navigation can hardly have been of much value.*
This might not have mattered, if only a suitable person had been
selected for the new post of Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac.
But Thomas Young, who was appointed Secretary to the Board
and Superintendent of the Almanac, was a perfect stranger to
practical astronomy and navigation, however distinguished he
was by his discovery of the interference of light and other scientific
works, not to speak of his researches on the interpretation of
hieroglyphics. Though he did much to retrieve the lost character
of the Almanac for accuracy, he set his face against every proposal,
however moderate, of reform of the publication. One of his
arguments, the additional expense, was not worth noticing ; and
not much more serious was his objection, that it would confuse
sailors to give them a book containing a good deal of information
which they did not want. He thought it better to publish pre-
dictions of occultations and similar details in the Journal of the
Royal Institution. But his chief argument was that astronomers
had no special claim to be aided in their work at the public
expense.!
The call for reform of the Nautical Almanac was first voiced
by Baily. In the Appendix to the translation of Cagnoli's Memoir
on determining the figure of the earth (1819), he says that the new
Board of Longitude have now the power and the means (4000 per
annum) to enlarge the original plan of the Nautical Almanac and
undertake other astronomical work. He published in the following
year in the Philosophical Magazine an ephemeris of the apparent
place of the pole star for every day of the years 1820, 1821, and
1822. He next printed for private circulation Astronomical Tables
* Among them were the Speaker, the Secretary to the Treasury, the Judge
of the High Court of Admiralty, etc. The Professors of Astronomy at Oxford
and Cambridge were on the Board, but were said not to attend its meetings
very regularly.
t Young was thus a precursor of those who fifty years later objected to
" the endowment of research."
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 57
and Remarks for the year 1822,* a perfect ephemeris except that it
does not include the sun and the moon. As the object was merely
to show what an ephemeris ought to contain, the design was taken
from Schumacher's Hulfstafeln for 1820 and 1821, and much of
the contents are borrowed from various sources ; e.g., the list of
occupations from Zach's Correspondence astronomique (computed
for Florence), and the places of the planets from Schumacher's
Ephemerides. Shortly afterwards Baily followed this up by
publishing Remarks on the present defective state of the " Nautical
Almanac." London, 1822, 72 pp. ; dated May 7.
In this essay Baily first refers to some remarks he had made in
the introduction to his recently published Tables, owing to some of
these differing from those of a similar kind in the Nautical Almanac.
These comments had called forth an anonymous " Reply to Mr.
Baily 's Remarks " in the Journal of the Royal Institution.^
Baily reprints the whole of this reply and then answers it point
by point. He goes through the four foreign ephemerides and
enumerates the articles in them which are not in the Nautical
Almanac. These were but few and unimportant, so far as the
Berlin Jahrbuch and the Connaissance des Temps went, but the
case was very different with the Coimbra and Milan ephemerides,
particularly with the former, which Baily pronounced, on the
whole, the best pattern for a work of this kind. His preference of
it seems to be mainly due to the innovation of all computations
being made with reference to mean solar time instead of apparent
time. The Milan ephemeris was specially praised for containing
a list of the visible occultations of all stars whose places
were given in any catalogue. Baily also pointed out that
the Bureau des Longitudes, established in 1796, more than
eighty years after the British one, did not contain any useless
members, nor " learned professors, who lived upwards of fifty
miles from the place of meeting and consequently seldom attend
the Board."
Simultaneously with Baily's pamphlet appeared one by South :
Practical Observations on the Nautical Almanac, 64 pp., dated 1822
April 15. He laid particular stress on showing that the Nautical
Almanac had always contained information which was only of
use to astronomers, and that there was therefore good reason for
extending the items given. He compared observations of eclipses
of Jupiter's satellites by Beaufoy and himself with the Nautical
Almanac and the Connaissance des Temps, and showed that the
data in the latter agree very much better with the observations
* ii pp. Preface, xxx. pp. Explanation, 72 pp. Tables; chart of the
Pleiades.
t Obviously written by Young himself, as Baily also hints.
58 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40
than those in the former. The positions of the planets ought to be
given more frequently and more accurately.*
Some of the most pressing needs both of seamen and of astro-
nomers were satisfied by a year-book published by Schumacher
for the Danish Hydrographic Office, beginning with the year 1822,
entitled Distances of the four planets Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and
Saturn from the Moon, together with their places for every day in
the year.-\ But Young did nothing ; he had been the teacher of
the world as regards the interference of light, but he would brook
no interference with his comfortable and not too onerous post as
Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac. The demand for reform
was, however, becoming too strong for him, when in 1827 April,
John Herschel, at a meeting of the Board of Longitude, " produced
a paper regarding improvements in the Nautical Almanac."
Airy, who tells this in his Autobiography, adds that Herschel and
he were the leaders of the reforming party in the Board, but that
Young, the Secretary, resisted change as much as possible. Some
slight attempt to satisfy the demand for an enlargement of the
Nautical Almanac was made by publishing separately a supplement
as proposed by Herschel, beginning with the year 1828 ; but it
seems to have been issued just at or after the commencement of
the year, and could not in any way be considered a satisfactory
solution.^ In the same year, 1828, the Board of Longitude was
abolished, but Young remained Superintendent of the Nautical
Almanac. This year also witnessed the publication of Encke's
Astronomisches Jahrbuch for 1830, embodying practically all the
suggestions made in England.
In 1829 January, Baily issued a second pamphlet, " Further
Remarks on the present defective state of the Nautical Almanac,
* Curiously enough, South (p. 15) expresses his " most earnest wish that
astronomers on shore would unite in dismissing mean time altogether from
their observatories, knowing as I do, that however suitable to the wants of
culinary philosophy, it is only calculated to entail on astronomical observations
needless labour, lamentable uncertainty, and, I might almost add, constant
error."
f Young made arrangements with Schumacher to have a large number of
copies imported ; but only fifty were sold in England, and Young maintained
that this proved that practical seamen did not want any information of that
kind.
J This supplement was published for the years 1828-33. That for
1831 contains : For every day at apparent noon, mean time, hourly difference,
double the sun's daily change of declination, time of semidiameter passing the
meridian, sidereal time at mean noon. For the moon : R.A. and Decl. at
time of transit, semidiameter in Sid. T. For midnight, log. of star constants
A, B, C, D. Hor. parallax and log. dist. of planets for every five days. Moon-
culminating stars. List of occultations. This particular supplement was
edited by Pond. We may add that Henderson for some years calculated
occultations in advance ; they were at first printed in the Quarterly Journal
of Science, and from 1829 circulated by the Society in lithographed lists.
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 59
to which is added an account of the new astronomical ephemeris
published at Berlin." * In this it is pointed out that the
Nautical Almanac was never solely intended for sailors ; they
do not require to know about the eclipses of Jupiter's satel-
lites or the places of Mercury or Uranus, etc., so that a
sixpenny pamphlet would suffice for them. There are many
inaccuracies in the work : invisible occupations or eclipses are
marked as visible at Greenwich, or vice versa ; mean places of
stars are given in one place different from what they are in
another ; February 29 of leap year forgotten in the apparent
places of stars, etc.
In the same month of 1829 January a Memorandum was (on
the 28th) presented to the Chancellor of the Exchequer relative
to the expediency of reforming the Nautical Almanac. A month
later a motion was made in the House of Commons for the pro-
duction of papers connected with the late Board of Longitude
and the Nautical Almanac., and on March 17 these were ordered to
be printed. They are : the Memorandum of January 28, with a
copy of the paper read by John Herschel to the Board of Longitude
on 1827 April 5 ; also a Report or reply to the Memorandum,
by Young, and finally an account of the expenses of the late Board.
The Memorandum states that the Almanac fell into disrepute
after Maskelyne's death ; that there were fifty-eight errors in the
volume for 1818 and, singularly enough, precisely the same number
of errors in that for 1830 ; that it does not contain the lunar
distances from the principal planets, nor any occultations ;
that the tables of the sun used by the computers are known
to be inaccurate ; that accurate places of all the planets (including
the four small ones) should be given for every day, etc. It is
therefore proposed that a new Board of Longitude should be
formed. To all this Young did his best to reply in his " Re-
port " ; but there would be no use in going through his attempts
to refute the complaints and deny the necessity of adding to the
contents of the Almanac.
As the Parliamentary Paper naturally did not contain any
refutation of Young's reply to the Memorandum, South thought
it incumbent on him to publish a " Refutation of the numerous
mis-statements and fallacies contained in a paper presented to the
Admiralty by Dr. Thomas Young, etc.," viii + 8o pp. The preface
is dated April 25. In an appendix are given the Report of 1795
to the French Convention, on the establishment of the Bureau
des Longitudes, and the law giving effect to this. The pamphlet
is written in South's usual style, very different from the calm and
* London, 1829 January, 24 pp. "Extracted from the Appendix to
Astronomical Tables and Formulae."
60 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40
moderate, but no less convincing style of Baily.* The violence
of South was no doubt disapproved by many ; thus, Airy writes
in his Autobiography : "In February and March I have letters
from Young about the Nautical Almanac : he was unwilling to
make any great change, but glad to receive any small assistance.
South, who had been keeping up a series of attacks on Young,
wrote to me to enquire how I stood in engagements of assistance to
Young. I replied that I should assist Young whenever he asked
me, and that I disapproved of South's course. The date of the
first visitation of the Cambridge Observatory must have been
near May n. I invited South and Baily to my house ; South and
I were very near quarrelling about the treatment of Young. In
a few days after Dr. Young died [on May 10], I applied to Lord
Melville for the superintendence of the Nautical Almanac : Mr.
Croker replied that it devolved legally upon the Astronomer Royal,
and on May 30, Pond wrote to ask my assistance when I could
give any."
Young's death and Pond's assuming charge of the Almanac
seem to have caused a lull in the agitation. It was probably
thought that the work would at once recover the prestige it had
enjoyed in the days of Maskelyne. Anyhow, nothing was done
by Pond except, no doubt, to see that the former standard of
accuracy was again attained, while he continued the issue of a
yearly supplement containing some of the additional information
demanded. The call for a more radical reform was, however, aided
by the Astronomical Society giving its Gold Medal to Encke in
1830 February for his Astronomisches Jahrbuch for 1830. This
was the first step of an official character which the Society took in
support of the demand for a completely new British ephemeris.
South, when presenting the medal (which he did in a moderate
and dignified speech), announced that the Admiralty had ordered
some additions to the Almanac for 1833, and intended to order
further additions to that for 1834.
At last the Admiralty made a move in the right direction by
addressing a letter to the Council of the Astronomical Society on
1830 July 28. This stated that directions had been given to the
Astronomer Royal, who was in temporary charge of the Nautical
Almanac, to insert certain additions proposed by the late Hydro-
* We must give one little specimen. Smyth, when surveying the Mediter-
ranean, was obliged to use the ephemerides of Paris, Milan, Bologna, and
Florence on account of the omissions and errors of the Nautical Almanac (this
Smyth in a letter certifies to be true). But wishing to show civility to a
Spanish captain, he presented him with his copies of the Nautical Almanac
for the current and subsequent years. " Captain Smyth with his foreign
ephemerides found his way to England ; but there is an awkward story
afloat that the Spanish captain has not since been heard of."
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 61
grapher, Sir Edward Parry, and " not objected to " by certain
members of the Society, to whom they had been communicated.
A printed copy of the proposed improvements for 1833 January was
sent with the letter, with a request to state whether they were
sufficient. On receipt of this, the Council lost no time, but at
once appointed a Committee of forty members (including all the
members of the Council) to consider the matter. This unwieldy
Committee, however, was only nominal, and the work was done by
a Sub-Committee consisting of Airy, Babbage, Baily, Beaufort,
J. Herschel, Pond, Robinson, South (Chairman), Stratford, and
W. Struve. The last mentioned was on a visit to this country,
and " devoted a considerable portion of his time to these
proceedings."
The " improved " ephemeris for 1833 January submitted to
the Society by the Admiralty (all the figures in which were ficti-
tious) was altogether unsatisfactory.* The time of rising and
setting of sun and moon were introduced ; otherwise the chief
alteration was that the place of the moon was given for every three
hours instead of for noon and midnight only. The places of the
planets were left without change, i.e. that of Mercury was still
given for every third day, " the Georgian " for every tenth, all the
others for every sixth day, and to i m in R.A. and i' in Decl. only.
The Report of the Committee was submitted to the Council
and adopted by them on 1830 November 19, when thanks were
voted to Baily " for his magnanimous and spirited devotion of
his time and talents to the composition and redaction of the
Report." It is printed in full in the Memoirs (4, 449-470),
and in the introduction to the Nautical Almanac for 1834. The
Committee declare that they had constantly kept in view the
principal object for which the Nautical Almanac was originally
formed, viz., the advancement of nautical astronomy ; but they
had also remembered that by a very slight extension of the com-
putations and a few additional articles, the work might be rendered
equally useful for all the purposes of practical astronomy.
The first reform demanded was the substitution of mean time
everywhere for apparent solar time, though the R.A. and Decl. of
the sun and the equation of time should be given both for apparent
and mean noon. An additional column to be introduced, giving
the M.T. of the transit of the first point of Aries. The use of
signs (of the Zodiac) as indicating arcs of 30 to be abolished in
expressing longitude. The R.A. and Decl. of the moon to be
given for every hour. The time of rising and setting of sun and moon
to be omitted. As regards the four principal planets, their places
* The Nautical Almanac for 1833, the last one edited by Pond, is in perfect
accordance with the plan of the specimen for January.
62 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40
for every day and their distance from the moon for every third
hour were given in Schumacher's Ephemerides, but these were
but little known in the British Navy ; it was therefore recommended
that these items be given in the Nautical Almanac. Also that
Mercury and the Georgian be treated in the same way by a " liberal
and enlightened Government." Further recommendations in-
cluded extended information about eclipses and transits of Jupiter's
satellites ; the insertion of the list of moon-culminating stars given
in the recent Supplements ; the extension of the " elements for
computing the principal occultations " into a list of occultations
of stars down to the 6th magnitude visible at Greenwich, with
elements for predicting occultations of planets and stars to the
5th magnitude visible in some habitable part of the globe. The
apparent places of the principal fixed stars to be given for the
time of transit and not for noon, and their number to be increased
to 100. The several monthly lists of phenomena to be made into
one list.
At the meeting of the Council in 1830 December a letter was
read from the Admiralty, announcing that the Astronomer Royal
had been directed to carry out the suggestions in the Report.
But soon afterwards Stratford, Lieutenant, R.N., on half-pay, was
appointed Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac, and carried
out the recommendations of the Committee most thoroughly,
beginning with the volume for 1834. Only a very few suggestions
were not adopted : ephemerides of the satellites of Uranus, of
Encke's comet, and of maxima and minima of Algol. The Society
had rendered an important service to astronomy and to navigation
by insisting on a thorough reform instead of the half-measures
first proposed.
The predictions of occultations commenced by Henderson
were continued by Stratford and distributed by the Society
till the end of 1833, after which date they appeared in the new
Nautical Almanac.
There was one desideratum which had not been noticed by the
Committee, viz., an ephemeris of the planets for the time of their
transit over the meridian of Greenwich. Perhaps they were
afraid to ask for too much ; but attention had already been
drawn to the utility of an ephemeris of that kind by Sheepshanks,
who calculated and printed one for the first six months of 1830.
In 1832 November, Stratford offered to provide " a working
ephemeris of all the planets at transit," if the Society would pay
for paper and printing, which offer was accepted. The same was
done for 1834, most of the calculations being done by Mr. Epps,
the Assistant Secretary, who undertook the whole of them for
1835. But this was found to take up too much of his time, while
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 63
the cost of printing (about 30) was rather more than the Society
could conveniently afford. Baily, therefore, liberally paid the whole
cost of computing and printing for the year 1836. Airy then, in 1836
March, wrote to the Admiralty asking that this Transit Ephemeris
might be prepared and printed at the public expense. As he bore the
strongest testimony to the value of this publication in fixed observa-
tories, where it saved a great deal of work, the Admiralty at once
directed that it should in future form part of the Nautical Almanac.
3. The appointment of Stratford to superintend the Nautical
Almanac obliged him to give up the Secretaryship of the Society,
which he had held since 1826. It deserves to be remembered
(and is recorded in the obituary notice of him in 1854) that during
the five years he was Secretary he had no assistance whatever,
so that " the whole routine of the business was conducted by him,
from the correction of the proofs of the Memoirs to the folding of
circulars." It was in view of his approaching retirement that the
Council in 1830 November appointed Mr. James Epps to be
Assistant Secretary from December 10, at a salary of 100 a
year, and ordered him to attend the meetings of the Council.
He was at that time fifty-seven years of age, and though he had
not received a regular education, he is said to have acquired a
good deal of knowledge of astronomy. He had published a couple
of short papers in the Memoirs (vol. 4) on finding the errors of
a transit instrument ; and three others were afterwards printed
in vols. 6, 9, and 11 on similar subjects. He was also interested
in rare, old books,* and was thus in every way well qualified for the
post he was to fill. He held the office of Assistant Secretary till
1838 March, when he resigned and removed to Hartwell Observa-
tory, where Dr. Lee had appointed him observer ; but he died in
the following year. He was succeeded in the service of the Society
by Mr. John Hartnup, formerly assistant at Lord Wrottesley's
Observatory, and employed for some time at Greenwich. He was
engaged at a salary of 80, and held the post till 1843 November,
when he became Director of the new Liverpool Observatory.
The growth of the library and many other considerations
made it more and more urgent for the Society to find a permanent
home in a suitable locality. They paid fifty guineas a year to the
Medico-Chirurgical Society for the use of rooms in that Society's
house, 57 Lincoln's Inn Fields. In 1830 February a Committee
was appointed by the Council " to procure apartments." But they
were not easy to find ; and it was therefore fortunate that an
influential person came to the rescue. The Duke of Sussex (brother
* Among books formerly belonging to Hartwell Observatory there are
several rare ones in which Lee has written, " From Mr. Epps's collection."
64 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40
to the King), who, though not exactly a scientific man, had de-
feated Sir John Herschel in a contest for the Chair of the Royal
Society, offered in 1831 June to assist the R.A.S. to procure rooms
in Somerset House in the Strand. The offer was, of course, gladly
accepted, but nothing happened for a long time. A plan was
suggested for taking a house jointly with two other societies ;
and on the other hand the Chirurgical Society, who were about
to change their residence, wanted to know if the R.A.S. would
continue to take rooms with them. Baily heard in 1832 from the
Council of the Royal Society that " there was hope of the matter
being accomplished without any further interference on the part
of H.R.H." At last, in 1834 April, the Duke forwarded a letter
from the Treasury, stating that there was every disposition to
comply with the suggestion, that certain parts of the building lately
occupied by the Exchequer offices should be appropriated for the
R.A.S., but that the temporary use of them would still be required
for a short time. Finally, Baily as President was able to announce
to the Council in the following November that he had taken
possession of three rooms on the Mezzanine floor of Somerset
House (between the principal and ground floors) and four rooms
on the ground floor. At the Annual Meeting in 1835 February
the Council were able to greet the Society in their new home (which
they were to occupy for exactly forty years), and to announce that
arrangements had been made for the daily attendance of the
Assistant Secretary from one till four o'clock. An additional room *
was handed over to the Society in 1836 November.
The library, which had hitherto been " literally inaccessible,"
now for the first time became of use to the Fellows. De Morgan
had in 1829 offered his services to arrange and catalogue the books
and manuscripts belonging to the Society, a task for which his love
of books and strong appreciation of the value of accurate biblio-
graphy fitted him in an unusual degree. This work was continued
by Mr. Epps, and a catalogue was first published in 1838. A
beginning had already been made towards the valuable collection
of manuscripts which now form a very important part of the
library. The original observations of Halley only existed in
MS. at the Greenwich Observatory. In 1832, on the representa-
tion of Baily, the Admiralty ordered a copy of these observations
to be made and presented to the Society. This copy was care-
fully collated with the original, and this interesting series of old
observations were thus made more accessible.f Collated copies of
* " The West room on the Mezzanine floor above the meeting room."
f An Account of Halley's observations was given by Baily in volume 8 of
the Memoirs (pp. 169-190), and some particulars about his instruments by
Rigaud (9, 205-227). Bigaud had in 1832 published Bradley's Miscellaneous
Works, including many observations not printed before.
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 65
Flamsteed's correspondence with Sharp and of Flamsteed's original
observations were deposited in the library by Baily in 1834-35.
Another accession to the library of the same kind was the
original manuscript of the extensive series of observations of
circumpolar stars made by Groombridge. These had been reduced
and a star-catalogue prepared from them at the expense of the
Admiralty. After 1830 June this work was done by a Mr. Henry
Taylor, a brother of the well-known astronomer at Madras, and a
son of Pond's First Assistant. He felt aggrieved at the account
given of the work in the obituary notice of Groombridge in the
Annual Report of 1833 (written by Sheepshanks), though his name
was not mentioned in it. His complaint, that statements in the
obituary were " totally inaccurate and essentially wrong," was
investigated by a Committee, who reported to the Council that
his charge was " frivolous and unfounded " ; which report the
Council adopted. Upon which Mr. Taylor, deeply offended,
resigned his fellowship of the Society. But he would have been
much wiser if he had let Sheepshanks alone. For that inde-
fatigable worker, who was now put on his mettle, at once proceeded
to make a thorough examination of the reductions and of the
printed catalogue, which only wanted the introduction (which
was in type) to be printed off in order to be published. This
examination led him to find so many errors, that he pronounced
the catalogue unfit for publication. At the request of the Ad-
miralty, the matter was next investigated by Airy and Baily, who
decided that the errors were of such a nature that no system of
cancelling or list of errata could remove them ; so that the catalogue
ought to be suppressed. Eventually a new catalogue was prepared
under the superintendence of Airy, the main bulk of the reductions
being found to have been well done ; and this was published in
1838.
As the Admiralty frequently consulted the Society, it was only
a proper recognition of its importance as a scientific body when
the President (in 1831) was empowered to nominate five Fellows to
serve with him on the Board of Visitors of the Royal Observatory.*
The Council also obtained the privilege of distributing a hundred
copies of the Greenwich Observations (1832).
In the Report on the Nautical Almanac the hope had been
expressed that a new edition might be issued of the " Tables
requisite to be used with the Nautical Almanac." In response
to this the Admiralty requested the Council to select and arrange
tables for a new edition. A large Committee, including several
foreign astronomers of note, was appointed in 1831 July. They
* Up to that time the Board consisted of the Council of the Royal Society
and a few others nominated by them.
5
66 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40
took ten months to prepare their Report, which is printed in
volume 5 of the Memoirs. They recommended various tables,
including a six-figure table of logarithms, which might form a
second part to be sold separately. It is stated in the Annual
Report of 1833 February that the Admiralty had directed a set
of tables to be computed in accordance with the proposal of the
Committee, but it does not appear that a new edition was brought
out at that time.
Another question, about which the Society was consulted by
the Admiralty, was whether, considering the great expense, it was
necessary to keep up two observatories in the southern hemisphere,
nearly on the same parallel of latitude. These were the Royal
Observatory at the Cape and the Paramatta Observatory. The
latter had been founded as a private observatory by Sir Thomas
Brisbane, and was handed over to the British Government in 1826.
The question had already been raised in 1828, when the Royal
Society had been consulted and had asked advice from the Astro-
nomical Society. The latter had then declared the two observa-
tories to be necessary ; the Cape Observatory as being nearly on the
same meridian as the principal observatories of Europe, and that at
Paramatta as differing so much in longitude and climate as to be
a useful check on the other one. It was pointed out that the
southern heavens were very imperfectly known, and that a fixed
station on the Australian continent would be of importance for
geographical and hydrographic surveys. This opinion was now
(1830 December) adhered to, and it was also pointed out that a
great deal of money had been spent on the Cape Observatory,
which would be wasted if it were given up.
If economy could not be recommended on that occasion, it
was duly taken into account in the following year when the Rev.
T. J. Hussey asked the Admiralty for 300 or 400 to erect a
suitable building to house his instruments at Hayes, in Kent.
This the Council could not recommend, though they recognised
that Hussey was an active observer, who possessed some valuable
instruments.*
The Admiralty was not the only Government Department
which showed its confidence in the Council by consulting it in a
* Hussey only communicated two short notes to the Society (M.N. , 1 and 2),
in the second of which he approved of Bianchini's rotation-period of Venus of
twenty -three days. He had a 6-inch refractor by Fraunhofer, and was the
only English observer who made one of the star-maps between 15 Decl.
published by the Berlin Academy. Hussey's Hora XIV. was one of the
first of the maps to be issued. He duly entered on this -map a star which had
been observed by Lalande in 1 795 ; but he did not notice that the star was
not there in 1832. It was Neptune ! Harding had done the same in 1810.
Curiously enough, Hussey was one of the first to consider the possibility of
finding the planet which disturbed the motion of Uranus (cf. Memoirs, 16, 387).
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 67
way which seems to have fallen into oblivion later on. In 1834
November, Baily, as President, announced that he had during the
recess (probably early in August) received a letter from Lord
Melbourne, First Lord of the Treasury, requesting that the Council
would wait on him in order to recommend a proper person to fill
the post of His Majesty's Astronomer at the Edinburgh Observa-
tory, the administration of which had recently been taken over
by the Government. As there was not time to call a meeting,
Baily and four others had waited on Melbourne, and recommended
Henderson ; and this was approved by the Council.* Henderson
received the appointment and started work at once ; his observa-
tions made up to the end of 1835 were sent to the Council in 1836
to be reported on, as to whether they ought to be printed ; and the
same was done the following year, till the Home Office had got to
understand that this precaution was unnecessary. The printing
of observations seems at that time never to have been undertaken
by any public body without the Society being consulted. The
East India Company in 1834 was quite willing to allow the Society
to pay for the printing of Johnson's Catalogue of 606 southern
stars observed by him at St. Helena. Baily, in stating that the
catalogue was of a high order of excellence, pointed out that the
Society was founded for the collection of the observations of
private individuals, not of public institutions, and that their
funds were limited. After which the Company agreed to print the
catalogue, and it came out in 1835. I* 1 the same year the Council
was asked to supervise the printing of Maclear's Cape Observations,
which request was of course agreed to.
The last occasion on which the aid of the Council was invoked
by the Government during this decade was in 1839 March, when the
Treasury forwarded a Memorial from a number of people, who
had subscribed towards the erection of an observatory near Glasgow,
praying for assistance to carry this object into effect. The Trea-
sury requested the Society to give their opinion as to the propriety
of complying with this request. The Council recommended this
to be done, suggesting, however, that the observations be annually
transmitted to the Treasury. This led to the erection of the
Glasgow Observatory, which was taken over by the University
in 1845.
4. The publications of the Society during this decade bear
witness to the rapid rise of astronomy in this country after a long
* Thomas Carlyle was a candidate for the post and thought himself ill-used
by his friend Jeffrey, then Lord Advocate, " who gave the office to a law-clerk."
See Reminiscences of Thomas Carlyle, edited by J. A. Froude, London, 1881.
As a youth, Henderson had been a writer's clerk.
68 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40
period of stagnation. As regards astronomy of precision, this
rise is more connected with the name of Airy than with any other.
When Airy took charge of the Cambridge Observatory in 1828,
he determined at once that the planets were to be observed as
often as possible. At Greenwich they had been completely
neglected by Maskelyne, who only observed the sun, the moon,
and his 36 standard stars, and they had been very little looked
after by Pond. Airy now began to observe them regularly at
Cambridge, and also showed his interest in them in other ways ;
by his suggestion that the mass of the moon might be determined
by observations of Venus near inferior conjunction,* and by his
new determination of the mass of Jupiter.f Having realised the
value of regularly continued observations of the major planets,
Airy soon saw the importance of getting the Greenwich planetary
and lunar observations made since 1750 reduced and compared
with the tables. These two great undertakings were not finished
till the following decade.
The four minor planets known at that time continued to attract
very little or no attention in England, while they were, as in previous
years, regularly observed and their orbits computed in Germany.
The same was the case with comets ; only Halley's comet excited
a great deal of interest at its return in 1835. Of researches on
planetary perturbations we cannot speak here, since none were
published by the Society, but it was during this period that
Lubbock published a series of important memoirs on lunar and
planetary theory, possessing many novel features.
In order to find a more correct, value of the ellipticity of
the earth by means of pendulum-observations in high southern
latitudes and near the equator, the Admiralty sent out the
sloop Chanticleer under Commander Henry Foster, R.N., in 1828.
On several previous voyages, Foster had made pendulum experi-
ments and taken other observations, for which he received the
Copley Medal in 1827. He had served in the Hecla on Parry's
third Arctic voyage. His work in the Chanticleer had nearly
been completed when Foster was unfortunately, in 1831 February,
drowned in the River Chagres. His observing books and papers
were by the Admiralty handed to Baily, who had been partly
responsible for Foster's outfit. In addition to two of Rater's
invariable pendulums, Foster had taken with him two convertible
ones furnished with two knife-edges ; these were the property of
the Society ; they had been designed by Baily, and had been ad-
justed and tried by him.J This led him to investigate all possible
* Memoirs, 4, part 2, p. 235 ; M.N., 1, 140.
t Memoirs, 6, 83 ; 8, 33 ; 9, 7 ; 10, 43 J M.N., 2, 171 ; 3, 36, 113 ; 4, 25.
J Described in Monthly Notices, 1, 78.
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 69
sources of error in pendulum experiments, and having become
acquainted with Bessel's researches on the correction due to the
resistance of the air, he resolved to study the whole subject by new
experiments performed under every possible condition of form
and material in air and in vacuum. The result of this most im-
portant investigation was published in the Philosophical Trans-
actions for 1832. Baily next reduced Foster's observations and
prepared them for publication. Including London and Greenwich,
Foster had visited fourteen stations, the most southerly one being
South Shetland, in latitude -62 56'. The compression of the
earth deduced from the observations was 1/289-48. The result
found from Sabine's experiments made in 1822-24 from Bahia to
Spitsbergen was 1/288-40, but Foster's work was five times more
extensive than Sabine's. The results derived from both- these
series are in excellent accord with the most recent results of pen-
dulum experiments. Baily's elaborate report to the Admiralty
was printed at the expense of the Government, and forms volume 7
of the Society's Memoirs (1834, 37$ PP-)-
The pendulum being a natural standard of length, it was
inevitable that Baily's pendulum observations should lead him to
inquire into the question of the British unit of length. Already
in 1830 March the Council resolved that the Society ought to
possess a standard scale. In 1833 the matter was put into Baily's
hands, and he had a scale constructed of a novel form, less liable
to those sources of error which have so often occurred in instru-
ments of this kind. The form adopted was that of a cylindrical
tube i- 12 inches in exterior diameter and 63 inches long, consisting
of three brass tubes drawn one within the other. The division
lines are cut on palladium pins let into the tube. When in use,
the scale is supported on two rollers always placed under the same
points. Three thermometers were let into the tube at equal
distances. The scale was compared with the imperial standard
yard preserved at the House of Commons, which was fortunate,
since the standard yard was lost in the conflagration of the Parlia-
ment building in 1834. Baily also compared the scale with two
copies of the French meter belonging to the Royal Society. His
lengthy " Report on the new Standard Scale of this Society " fills
150 pages of volume 9 of the Memoirs. It includes an interesting
history of the standard measures of this country.*
Baily's researches on the figure of the earth naturally led to
others on its density. An accidental remark by De Morgan at the
Council table in 1835, that the " Cavendish experiment " ought to
* For the subsequent history of this scale, see M.N., 7, 55, and 8, 83.
C/. Weld, History of the Royal Society, 2, 267. It was re-examined by Major
MacMahon in 1907 (M.N., 71, 164).
70 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40
be repeated, led at once to a Committee being appointed to consider
the practicability of doing so. A Government grant was obtained,
and Baily undertook the work, which, however, was not finished
and published till 1843.
If from the bodies of the solar system, including the earth, we
pass to the investigation of the elements required for the reduction
of observations, we may begin by mentioning that among the
papers published in the Memoirs during the previous decade had
been H. Atkinson's study of the decrease of temperature in the
atmosphere and its effect on refraction (vol. 2). He followed this
up by a second investigation on the fluctuations of temperature
near the earth's surface, and their effect on the refractions at very
low altitudes.* Unfortunately the author's death prevented the
completion of his work. Another paper (of a different kind) on
refraction near the horizon, was one of the results of Henderson's
short stay at the Cape Observatory. With the mural circle he
observed the apparent zenith distances of stars culminating within
5 of the horizon, on both sides of the zenith. The result was that
the observations, except in the case of four or five stars, agreed
better with the tables of Ivory than with those of Bessel.f
Of other fundamental determinations we find what is one of
the most important of all, the position of the ecliptic, investigated
by Airy from his Cambridge observations in the years 1833-35.$
The constant of Nutation was determined by Robinson from
6023 zenith distances of fifteen stars, observed by Pond in the years
1812-35 with the Greenwich mural circle.
A new value of the lunar parallax was another fruit of Hender-
son's Cape observations. He deduced it from observations of
the moon's declination made with the mural circle at the Cape
in 1832 and 1833, combined with corresponding observations
made at Greenwich and Cambridge. ||
But valuable as these results of what might be called Hender-
son's expedition to the Cape undoubtedly are, they are thrown into
the shade by his great achievement, the first reliable determination
of the annual parallax of a fixed star. The astronomical world
had grown rather tired of announcements of annual parallax
found from meridian observations. Brinkley's parallaxes had
been vigorously assailed by Pond ; and though the question
remained in doubt for some years, it was gradually recognised
that they were imaginary.^ Henderson's paper was laid before
* Memoirs, 4, 517-530. Summary in M.N., 1, 193.
t Ibid., 10, 271-282. J Ibid., 8, 105 ; 9, n ; 10, 235.
Ibid., 11, 1-19 ; M.N., 4, 133- II Ibid., 10, 283-294.
Tf Chandler found in 1892 that Brinkley's observations indicated a rotation
of the pole in about a year, and that this would to some extent account for
his strange results.
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 71
the Society on 1839 January u. By the long delay in reducing
his observations of a Centauri he lost the priority of publication,
as Bessel had announced the discovery of the parallax of 61 Cygni
to the Society two months earlier.
The determinations of astronomical constants referred to in
the foregoing, and others published abroad, were urgently required
for the reduction of the numerous observations with improved
instruments at that time being made.
The Cambridge Observatory was built in 1823-24, but no work
of any consequence was done until Airy was given charge of it
as Plumian Professor in 1828. At first he had only a transit
instrument and no assistant ; but he fell to work at once, reducing
the observations without delay and preparing them for the press,
so that the printing actually commenced before the end of the year.
The first small volume of Cambridge Observations, 1828, came out
in the spring of 1829, soon after an assistant had been appointed.
The observations were continued with great regularity, the planets
being specially attended to ; but it was not till 1833 January that
a mural circle by Troughton & Simms was ready for work. The
observatory was in every way a model institution, and its publica-
tions exhibited the reductions to an extent hitherto unknown,
while the principle was introduced of not attempting to correct
the instrumental errors mechanically, but measuring their amount
and applying numerical corrections.
These and other contributions to practical astronomy naturally
led to Airy's being appointed Astronomer Royal on Pond's retire-
ment in 1835. Pond had originally won his reputation by a paper
published in the Philosophical Transactions, 1806, in which he
proved that the serious errors in Maskelyne's declinations of
standard stars were due to the great quadrant having become worn
at the centre. At Greenwich, Pond on the whole followed in the
footsteps of Maskelyne ; the mural circle ordered by the latter
shortly before his death, took the place of the quadrant, and a new
transit instrument came into use in 1816. No improvements were
made in the methods of reduction, so that, for instance, Bradley's
table of refractions continued to be used long after it had been
abandoned as inaccurate everywhere else. But the observations
were certainly better than Maskelyne's, as Pond took great pains
to find every possible cause of error. The greatly increased staff
of assistants * also enabled him to multiply the number of single
results of any quantity considered to be important. Towards
the end of his life the impression gained ground in London that the
Observatory had fallen into a state of disrepute ; and when the
appointment was offered to Airy, it was suggested to him that
* There was one assistant when he came and six when he left.
72 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40
" the whole establishment ought to be cleared out." * Though
Airy acknowledged that " the establishment was in a queer state,"
he attributed this to Pond's ill-health, to the inefficiency of his
first assistant, and to the intolerable amount of business connected
with chronometers. This Airy at once got reduced within proper
limits, while the first assistant was replaced by a high Cambridge
Wrangler (Main), an arrangement continued ever since. The
work begun at the Cambridge Observatory was now continued on
a larger scale at Greenwich, to the incalculable benefit of astronomy.
At the beginning of this decade the only other observatory in
the United Kingdom where useful work was going on and was being
published, was that at Armagh, where Robinson had commenced
re-observing Bradley's stars in 1827. At Dublin (since the retire-
ment of Brinkley) and at Oxford " grinding the meridian " was
going on most steadily and perse veringly, without the slightest
thought of reduction or publication. It was no doubt these two
observatories which Airy had in mind when he wrote : ( "In
England an observer conceives that he has done everything when
he has made an observation. He thinks that the merely noting
the passage of a star over one wire and its bisection by another,
is all that can be expected from him ; and that the use of a table
of logarithms or anything beyond the very first stage of reduction,
ought to be left to others." At Oxford this state of things came to
an end in 1839, when Johnson was appointed Radcliffe Observer.
Of the work done at the Cape Observatory by Henderson we have
already spoken. From 1835, valuable observations were both
made and regularly published by him at the Edinburgh Observatory.
As regards instrumental equipment, the transit instrument
and the mural circle reigned supreme in British Observatories.
Romer's plan of observing both Right Ascension and Declination
with one instrument had at last been imitated by Troughton in the
transit circle, which he made for Groombridge in 18064 But
he never made another, and a few years later he constructed the
first mural circle for Greenwich. Why this form of instrument,
large and lopsided, should have become such a favourite in this
country, though hardly anywhere else, is difficult to explain ;
perhaps it was because it was supposed that in order to lessen the
effect of division errors the circle would have to be very large.
* Airy's Autobiography (Cambridge, 1896), pp. 109 and 128.
t ** Report on the progress of Astronomy during the present Century."
Second Report of the Brit. Assoc. (1832), p. 184. In a footnote Airy adds that
this is, of course, not the character of every English observer.
J It had a telescope of 5 feet and a circle 4 feet in diameter.
It is, at any rate, something to be thankful for, that the " preposterous "
circle (as Newcomb called it) of 8 feet diameter, at Dunsink, was not imitated.
It helped to make most of Brinkley's observations useless.
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 73
That Reichenbach's transit circle, mounted at the Gottingen
Observatory about 1819, was not adopted, is not strange, since the
construction was rather weak ; but these faults were remedied in
Repsold's form of the instrument.
But however mistaken this policy may have been, there was
now everywhere a strong desire to make the utmost of every
instrument, and to study and allow for its imperfections. There
are several striking examples of this in papers published by the
Society ; see, for instance, Sheepshanks' paper on the Cape Mural
Circle. From the miscroscope readings at every tenth degree
made by Fallows, the first astronomer there, Sheepshanks found
that the circle had received some injury, but that the mean of the
six miscroscopes was quite to be relied on.* This was afterwards
confirmed by Henderson from readings of every 5. | A very
thorough investigation of the Armagh mural circle by Robinson
also appeared in volume 9 of the Memoirs.
About this time transit instruments were often put to a use
which, for some years, threatened to absorb a disproportionate
amount of time. This was observing moon-culminating stars to
determine the longitude of the observatory, or of some station
where corresponding observations were made. Considering the
exceedingly rough results obtained, it is strange that this method
could remain in favour for some years, even for want of another.
But it was not realised that there was no security even in a great
number of observations. Thus, Robinson found for the longitude
of Armagh, after allowing for irradiation, 26 m 3O s -4, which he
thought could not be more than o s -i wrong. J In reality it was
5 s too small. The determination of difference of longitude by the
transport of chronometers, which was first tried between Greenwich
and Cambridge in 1828, gradually ousted the moon-culminating
stars from fixed observatories.
During most of the time he spent at Greenwich, Pond only
observed a small number of standard stars (40 to 60) and published
several small catalogues of them. In the Greenwich Observations
for 1829 ne published a catalogue of 720 stars for the epoch of
1830, the largest catalogue based on observations made in England
after Bradley's time. Of Johnson's catalogue of 606 southern
stars, observed at St. Helena, we have already spoken. The next
catalogue to be published in England was one of the Right Ascen-
sions (only) of 1318 stars, observed at Lord Wrottesley's Observa-
tory at Blackheath. Mention must also be made of another
small star catalogue by an amateur, which, though published in
* Memoirs, 5, 325-339, and M.N., 2, 91-100. The latter is not a mere
abstract.
t Memoirs, 8, 141-168. J Ibid., 4, 293 seq. Ibid., 10, 157-234.
74 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40
the following decade, was founded on observations made in 1830
and following years. This was a catalogue of 520 stars within
6 of the Ecliptic, observed by Pearson at South Kilworth, Leices-
tershire, with a transit instrument and a 3-foot-altazimuth.* Of
greater importance than these was the catalogue of 726 stars
deduced from observations made at the Cambridge Observatory
from 1828 to 1835, which appeared in volume 9 of the Memoirs.
This foreshadowed what might be expected, in the way of per-
fectly independent catalogues of standard stars, from the Green-
wich Observatory under its new director, and was a fitting ending
to his work at Cambridge.
If we now turn from the public observatories to those of
private observers, we find again one great name which stands
pre-eminent ; that of John Herschel. The observations of
double stars made by him with his 2O-foot reflector at Slough
were published in the Memoirs of the Society in eight instalments.
Six of these f contain the places of the couples found, 3346 in all.
The position angles were up to 1828 July 5 merely estimated ;
after that date they were measured by a micrometer, but the
distances were estimated throughout the whole series. In the first
three papers the position angles are expressed according to the
notation used by W. Herschel, the parallel being the zero line and
the angles counted from o to 90 in each quadrant. But in the
fourth series (presented 1830 April) Herschel used the notation
ever since adopted, having found the old system very liable to
introduce errors and confusion. Some members of the Council
seem to have been alarmed by this innovation ; and the Committee,
to whom the paper had been referred, recommended that the old
notation should be adhered to. South was, however, requested to
consult with Herschel, and, as an old observer of double stars, he
was no doubt easily persuaded of the advantages of the new plan.
The nebulae and clusters found in the course of HerschePs
" sweeps " were formed into a catalogue of 2306 objects for 1830;
the single observations being given for each object. About 500
of these objects were recorded for the first time. This catalogue
was presented to the Royal Society, and published in the Philoso-
phical Transactions for 1833. Our Society's Gold Medal was
awarded to Herschel for this work in 1836.
Simultaneously with these observations with the 20 -foot
reflector, Herschel also made measures of double stars with a
refractor of 5-iriches aperture and 7 feet focal length, equatoreally
mounted. These measures were published in two papers in the
Memoir s.% We may add that another distinguished observer of
* Memoirs, 15, 97-127. t Ibid., 2, 3, 4, 6, 9.
J Ibid., 5, 13, and 8, 37-
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 75
double stars, Dawes, began his labours on these objects about
1830.*
The brilliant discovery by W. Herschel of binary stars naturally
led to attempts being made to calculate their orbits as soon as a
sufficiently long arc had been described. The first to do so was
Savary in the Connaissance des Temps for 1830, and he was soon
followed by Encke in the Berliner Jahrbuch for 1832. Both their
methods were perfect from an analytical point of view ; but
J. Herschel considered it a great objection to both, that they
required four complete measures. At that time it was assumed
that position angles could be measured without much danger of
systematic errors, while this was not supposed to be the case with
the distances. Herschel therefore rejected the use of distances
(except for the determination of the major axis), and found the
elements by a happy combination of graphic construction and
numerical calculation. f
HerscheFs examination of the northern heavens was completed
in 1833 May, and as soon as his preparations could be finished
(even before all his previous observations were ready for publica-
tion) he embarked with his instruments for the Cape of Good Hope,
in order to extend to the southern hemisphere the review which his
father and he had made of the northern sky. Landing at Cape-
town in 1834 January, he lost no time in erecting his instruments
in a suitable locality about six miles from the town, so that he
could begin regular work on March 5. The last " sweep "
with the 20 -foot reflector was made on 1838 January 22, and thus
was brought to a close an undertaking which is unique in the
history of science, having been carried out in the course of thirteen
years by one individual without any help whatsoever, and entirely
at his own cost, including an expedition to a distant part of the
earth lasting four years. No wonder that he was honoured in many
ways on his return to England in the spring of 1838 ; his scientific
friends and admirers gave him a hearty welcome at a festive
banquet, before he settled down to the laborious task of preparing
for publication the immense number of results of his expedition.
Before Herschel left Slough in the spring of 1840 to spend the
remainder of his life in Kent, he had to dismount his father's
famous 40 -foot telescope, the woodwork of which had become
dangerously decay ed.J This was done in 1839 December, a date
which is of importance, as it serves to fix the time of a great advance
* Memoirs, 5, 135. *39 ; 8, 58, 61.
t Ibid., 5, 171 ; further applications of the method, 6, 149. Herschel
returned to the subject many years afterwards in volume 18.
J The " Requiem," written by J. Herschel and sung inside the tube on
New Year's eve, 1839-40, is printed in Weld's History of the Royal Society, 2,
195, and in the Astronomische Nachrichten, No. 405 (Bd. xvii.).
76 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40
in the then recently discovered art of photography. While the
telescope was yet standing, John Herschel secured a photograph
of it, using a glass negative, which is still in existence and from
which paper prints were successfully made many years later. *
How many glass negatives have been taken since then to depict
the stars and nebulae, first systematically explored by the two
Herschels ? It was fitting that what became afterwards a powerful
adjunct to astronomical telescopes should first have been fashioned
by a Herschel, and should first have been directed to the earliest
of modern giant telescopes.
Of private observers with more modest instrumental means
at their disposal, there were as yet very few. Instruments from
the collection formed by the Society were freely lent to such
Fellows as were expected to make good use of them. Among the
earliest donations to this collection were a 4-foot transit instrument
and a small altazimuth, given by the son of Colonel Beaufoy.
These were lent to Captain W. H. Smyth, R.N., who had won a
name by long-continued hydrographic work in the Mediterranean,
and on leaving the sea had settled at Bedford. The altazimuth
was soon exchanged for another (by Troughton) presented to the
Society by Dr. Lee. But the most important instrument in Smyth's
Observatory was an equatoreally mounted refractor by Tulley,
of 5-9 inches aperture and nearly 9 feet focal length, mounted in
1830, and supplied with a clock movement designed by Sheep-
shanks. With this, Smyth, during the next nine years, measured
hundreds of double stars and examined clusters and many of the
brighter nebulae. When he had completed these observations,
Smyth parted with his telescope to his friend Dr. Lee, who erected
it in an observatory he had built at Hartwell House, Bucks. f
Here it seerns to have been only occasionally used ; but though
never engaged in regular astronomical w r ork, Lee was a generous
patron of science on many occasions and very liberal to our Society,
as we shall see further on.
Another private observatory in the early thirties was that of
Thomas Maclear, at that time a physician at Biggleswade, Bed-
fordshire, J where he observed and computed occultations and
other phenomena. But his activity there was not of long duration,
as he was appointed to succeed Henderson at the Cape in 1833.
* The writer is indebted to the late Sir W. J. Herschel for one of these
prints, mounted in a frame made from the ladder-rungs of John Herschel's
2O-foot telescope. The negative is in the South Kensington Museum.
f Hartwell House had been a very well-known place early in the century,
as Louis XVIII. lived there from 1808 to 1814.
J Described in Memoirs, 6, 147.
It is not a little remarkable that, of four Directors appointed to the Cape
Observatory in fifty years (1830-80), three had already acquired a name as
amateurs.
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 77
Of other amateurs active between 1830 and 1840 we must
mention George Bishop, whose observatory on the Inner Circle,
Regent's Park, London, though started in 1836, belongs more to
the next two decades. To Dawes, Hussey, Wrottesley, and Pearson,
we have already alluded. There were not in those days (as there
are now) many people deeply interested in astronomy, who, without
possessing anything worthy of being called an observatory, yet
owned a small telescope or two and got hold of a useful field of
work. Very little, if any, attention was paid to variable stars ;
and the study of the surface-markings of the planets was quite
neglected. Of silver ed-glass reflectors there w r ere none ; and the
possessors of small refractors did not realise that Olbers
had never possessed anything bigger than a 3 f -inch refractor (or
" achromatic," as it would have been called in England), and that
Beer's and Madler's map of the moon and their drawings of the
planets were made with a telescope of a similar size. The English
observer with small telescopes had not yet arrived on the scene,
but when he did come, his name was to be legion.
But a British amateur astronomer was during this decade hard
at work making specula of as large a size as possible. William,
third Earl of Rosse, during this decade succeeded in making
mirrors three feet in diameter, first one cast in a number of pieces
(mounted in 1835) and afterwards another solid one, mounted in
1839. His further magnificent success in making a speculum of
six feet aperture belongs to the next decade.
Next to John Herschel, the most conspicuous of English non-
official astronomers was Francis Baily, of whom it is not too much
to say that he was the central figure of our Society during the
first twenty-four years of its existence. In recognition of what
the Society owed to him, a number of Fellows subscribed in 1838
and presented a portrait of him to the Society. It has been shown
in the foregoing pages how he, after taking a leading part in the
foundation of the Society, endeavoured to encourage amateur
observers by the publication of ephemerides and tables, while he,
after years of labour, had a principal share in the reform of the
national ephemeris. We have also seen how he was one of the
first to grapple successfully with the problem of forming the cor-
rections of a star's place for aberration and nutation into simple
formulae, and how this led him to the formation of the Society's
catalogue. This work on star-places led him also to prepare a
new and corrected edition of Mayer's catalogue. The original
observations on which this was founded were published by the
Board of Longitude in 1826. Baily did not reduce them anew,
but wherever the positions differed too much from those of Bradley
or Piazzi, he searched the observations to find the cause of the
78 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40
discrepancy. The new edition was printed in volume 4 of the
Memoirs.* Of greater interest was Baily's revised edition of
Flamsteed' s British Catalogue of Stars, chiefly because it was issued
together with Flamsteed's correspondence with his former assistant,
Abraham Sharp, giving an account of the repeated difficulties
and impediments, mainly due to Newton and Halley, which
delayed and almost prevented the printing of the Historia Ccelestis.
At the meeting of the Society on 1833 November 8, Baily gave a
preliminary account of the contents of these letters, which was
printed in volume 3 of the Monthly Notices, 4-10. The whole of
the correspondence was then, in 1835, published in Baily's work,
An Account of the Rev. John Flamsteed. ... To which is added
his British Catalogue of Stars, corrected and enlarged (Ixxiii-f
672 pp., 4to).
This publication was objected to in the strongest possible
manner by some, who could not believe that Newton, by any
possibility, could have been mean or unjust. f Reasonable oppon-
ents (like Whewell) were silenced by Baily's reply in the " Supple-
ment " which he printed for private circulation in 1837. It was
reserved for an incurable hero-worshipper like Brewster to accuse
Baily (long after his death) of " a system of calumny and mis-
representation." { Expressions like these are the more inexcusable,
as Brewster, after reading Baily's preliminary paper in the Monthly
Notices, wrote in 1834 February to suggest to Baily that he might
prefix a life of Flamsteed to his edition of the British Catalogue,
which would afford an excellent opportunity of giving an account
of the difference between him and Newton. But posterity,
which is often more just than contemporaries, has long ago acquitted
Baily of the unjust charge brought against him by the blind and
uncritical worshipper of Newton.
Baily's further work in the revision of old star-catalogues,
from Ptolemy to Hevelius, was completed in the next decade,
and published at his own expense as volume 13 of our Memoirs.
Perhaps we may allude in passing to the phenomenon known as
" Baily's beads," a row of luminous points seen by him at the
beginning and end of centrality during the annular eclipse of
* Auwers made a complete new reduction of the catalogue (Tobias Mayer's
Sternverzeichniss, Leipzig, 1 894). The resulting star-places are vastly superior
to those of the former edition.
t When Baily first announced his discovery of the Flamsteed Papers,
Ivory called at the Society's rooms to inquire from Epps about their contents
and "to express the hope that Mr. Baily was not attacking living persons
under the names of Newton and Flamsteed." Ivory passed his life under the
impression that secret and unprovoked enemies were at work upon his char-
acter. De Morgan, Budget of Paradoxes, p. 345.
J Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton, 1, Preface, p. xii.
De Morgan, Newton, His Friend, and his Niece, p. 106.
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 79
1836.* Though seen before, they had not attracted much atten-
tion, and there can be little doubt that Baily's lively account of
that eclipse did a good deal to excite interest beforehand in the
next total eclipse in 1842.
5. During this decade volume 4, part 2, and volumes 5 to 10 of the
Memoirs were issued, giving excellent evidence of the activity of
astronomers in this country, and proving the great value of the
Memoirs as a medium for the publication of papers on Astronomy.
Except volume 7, which contains only Baily's report on Foster's
Pendulum Experiments, all the volumes contain many papers of
moderate length, which in later years would have been put in the
Monthly Notices. The Annual Reports of the Council are placed
at the end of the volumes, and immediately before them there is
(except in 7) a considerable number of observations grouped
together under common headings, comets, occultations, eclipses
of Jupiter's satellites, moon-culminating stars. The last men-
tioned were for some years prime favourites, and occupy a good
deal of space in print, until it occurred to the Council in 1838 that
this was quite unnecessary, since Greenwich, Cambridge, and
Edinburgh Observatories published their observations annually.
The practice of publishing each volume in two separate parts was
discontinued after volume 4, as the papers received steadily increased
in number ; but as a year or more might often elapse between
the reception of a paper and the appearance of the volume in which
it was printed, arrangements were made whereby a Fellow, on
depositing the estimated value of a volume with the publisher,
might be furnished with each sheet as soon as it was printed. But
probably very few availed themselves of this privilege.
To some extent this want of rapid publication of results was
rendered less harmful by the excellent and fairly detailed summaries
of all papers read, which now had become a regular feature of the
Monthly Notices. These were probably often furnished by the
authors, but there can be no doubt that De Morgan, who was one
of the Secretaries from 1831-39, deserves a considerable share
of the credit of this very useful part of the Society's publications. f
The Monthly Notices had steadily been growing in importance
from the first day they began to appear. Started originally to
furnish very sketchy " notices " of the proceedings of the Society,
* Memoirs, 10, 1-42.
f Throughout his life De Morgan continued to be warmly interested in
the Society and was a regular attendant at the meetings. This is the more
remarkable as he never joined the Royal Society, and described himself as
" not a gregarious animal." But he firmly declined the office of President,
which he did not think ought to be held by a man who was not an active
worker in astronomy.
80 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40
these summaries gradually became more full ; and though as a
rule every paper laid before the Society and deemed worthy of
publication appeared in the Memoirs, there began to be occasional
exceptions to this rule, when some short paper would only appear
in the Notices.* The two first volumes were published by Priestley
& Weale ; and as the first fourteen numbers (to 1828 November)
had run out of print, they were reprinted in 1831, the Society
paying half the cost. But in 1834 June the publishers declined
to continue the publication of the Notices, and volume 2 was
therefore at once brought to a close. From that date the Monthly
Notices were " printed for the Society," and only a number sufficient
for distribution to the Fellows were printed, f In the Annual Report
of 1840, Fellows were warned that the Notices could not be pur-
chased, so that anyone desirous of preserving them should endea-
vour to prevent their being lost. The result of this reckless anxiety
to save a few pounds annually was, that volumes 3, 4, and 5 almost
at once became unobtainable ; and for the last fifty years or more
they have been among the greatest literary rarities. When once
the time had passed, when the death of one of the early Fellows
would bring a set into the market, they were simply never met with,
except when on very rare occasions a long series of volumes might
be offered for sale. It is much to be regretted that these old
volumes should be so scarce, as not only is much of the information
given in them still of value ; but the abstracts of papers and the
Annual Report afford very pleasant reading.^
6. It was not only by the number and value of the papers
published by the Society during the years 1830-40, that its steadily
increasing prosperity was shown, but also by the gradual rise in the
number of Fellows. In 1830 February there were 243 Fellows, in
1840, 307. Of these, respectively, 106 and 89 were non-residents,
who lived at least 50 miles from London, and, having paid eight
guineas, were exempt from annual subscription. In 1831 February
an addition to the Bye-laws was passed, putting a stop to the election
of non-resident Fellows ; but, of course, it took years before the
finances of the Society felt the benefit of this change. A great
* Among these are : Daily's Account of the Flamsteed Papers
(3, 4) ; Sheepshanks' Description of a Clock-movement for Equatoreals
(3, 40) ; Biographical Notes on Halley, by Rigaud (3, 67) ; Baily's
Paper on the Transit of Mercury, 1707 (3, 105) ; Th. Grubb on Gregorian
and Cassegrain Reflectors (3, 177), etc.
f In 1839 May an estimate was received for printing 300 copies. That
the volumes from 8 are less scarce is due to Sheepshanks, who for some years
had additional copies printed and gave them away (M.N., 16, 91).
J The Annual Reports were, however, also printed in the Memoirs.
The last non-resident Fellow, Admiral Bayfield, elected in 1827, died
in 1885 in his ninetieth year.
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 81
difficulty with which the Treasurer had to contend, was the con-
siderable amount of arrears of subscriptions which appeared in
the accounts every year. In 1830 they amounted to 140, and they
nearly always exceeded that sum, reaching 211 in 1839. There
seems to have been a disinclination among the members of the
Council to take drastic measures to put an end to this nuisance,
although the Treasurer or the Finance Committee reported on it
several times.
King William IV. had consented to become the Patron of the
Society in 1830, and Queen Victoria was pleased to accept the
same position in 1837. Two distinguished ladies, Caroline Herschel,
the indefatigable assistant of her brother, and Mary Somerville,
author of a valuable book on the Mechanism of the Heavens, were
elected Honorary Members in 1835 February.
Among the benefactors of the Society, John Lee occupies one
of the foremost places. He showed his attachment to it in 1831
October by requesting the Council to recommend a candidate for
the vacant vicarage of Stone, near Aylesbury, of which he was
the patron. The Council " having no candidate before them of
known reputation for astronomical requirements," selected one of
the applicants. Of more value to the Society was a gift from
Lee in 1834 December of 100 as a nucleus of a fund for the
benefit of widows or orphans of deceased Fellows. In 1836 April
he offered the gift of the advowson of the living of Hartwell,
Bucks, which was accepted.* A good beginning was thus made
towards the formation of the Society's funded property.
The period 1830-40 was on the whole a quiet period in the
history of astronomy. As De Morgan said, " Astronomers had
rather given over expecting anything very great in the future :
they were inclined to think that nothing was left except to give
the existing methods and results additional fulness and accuracy,
facility, and neatness." f Considering that the search for a star
with an appreciable annual parallax had at last been successful,
one would think that many astronomers must have had more faith
in the future of their science than De Morgan credited them with.
* The deed of this " Voluntary Grant " was not received till 1838 January.
Lee had wished it to be stated, that, if the Society should cease to exist, the
advowson should go to the Royal Society. But he gave this up owing to
legal difficulties, and merely expressed the hope that the Society, while it
existed, would never alienate the advowson. But it was ultimately found
desirable to dispose of it and the advowson of Stone (given in 1844) to Lee's
heir for 700 in 1879.
t De Morgan, Newton, his Friend and his Niece, p. 155. Airy, in his
Autobiography (p. 168), writes in 1845 that the sleep of Astronomy was broken
by the discovery of Astrsea.
CHAPTER III
THE DECADE 1840-1850. (By R. A. SAMPSON.)
The Society's Rooms. Throughout this decade the Society
occupied its apartments in Somerset House, " commodious apart-
ments," as Herschel called them, though we should now find them
rather narrow. Their position was
Latitude, 51 30' 3 8"'3 N,
Longitude, 27 s * 38 W,
as ascertained by Hartnup in 1843, working with a sextant and
pocket chronometer from the terrace, whence he proceeded by an
easy triangulation to the meeting rooms. He does not appear to
have determined their height above sea level, and it would seem as
if these numbers required correction of about +2", +o s *25 respec-
tively, for the Ordnance Survey places the site designated within
King's College. The apartments included rooms in which the
Assistant Secretary was required to reside (Council Minute, March
1846). During part of the time they included two rooms in the
basement. It is noted with satisfaction in the Council Report of
1842, that " Her Majesty's Government has put the Society in
possession of two rooms in the basement story of the present
building, which have been cleaned out and appropriated for the
erection of any apparatus that may be required for pendulum
experiments, or for prosecuting any other investigations that may
be carried on in such apartments." But congratulation was
premature ; though the transfer was promised in 1841 June, we
find in 1844 February that the Council have to regret that the
rooms have not yet been handed over, " although there is no doubt
that they are at this moment wholly unoccupied," and it was not
till May of the same year that possession was finally obtained.
They were immediately used for housing standard copies of United
States weights and measures which had been sent from that
country, and afterwards for investigations relating to the Standard
Yard.
Membership. The total membership, virtually stationary for
the first six years, showed thereafter some rapid accessions : the
numbers run
82
1840-50] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 83
1840 . . 350 1844 . . 337 1848 . . 364
1841 . . 348 1845 . . 344 1849 . . 388
1842 . . 349 1846 . . 365 1850 . . 412
1843 . . 341 1847 . 365
These include 36 Associates at the beginning of the epoch and
57 at the end. The accounts show a state of steady, if moderate,
prosperity. The invested funds, apart from compounders' fees,
increased by 400. There was a sum of floating arrears,* which
on occasion imposed the unpleasant necessity of expulsion of
defaulting Fellows, but "it is gratifying to state that the Society
is high among scientific associations as to the promptitude with
which its dues are paid."
Presents. The Society was the recipient of some interesting
presents. Among these was Caroline Herschel's telescope, a 7-foot
Newtonian reflector, made by her brother and presented by her
nephew. A fine altitude and azimuth instrument, constructed by
Reichenbach, of Munich, was presented by Admiral Greig, an
officer of the Russian Navy. Admiral Greig was a brother-in-law
of Mrs. Somerville, and one of the very first members of the Society.
He founded" the observatory of Nicolajew, and " there is no question
that the successful building and endowment of Pulkowa are mainly
owing to his care and intelligent guidance." A cast of Chantrey's
bust of Mrs. Somerville was presented in 1844. In the same year,
Turnor, having acquired some very valuable manuscripts on
vellum, containing calendars of the years 1347, 1349, besides
planetary tables and other matters, of which the Assistant Secre-
tary, Harris, gave a description in Monthly Notices, 1845 January,
presented them to the Society with a very graceful letter.* Pearson
presented the remaining copies of his Practical Astronomy. The
generous Mr. Lee presented the advowson of Stone, the second
advowson he had made over to the Society. Another interest-
ing gift of his was a portrait of John Middleton, who
founded in 1717 the " respectable and useful Society of Mathe-
maticians in Spitalfields," which our Society absorbed in 1846,
as related below. The senior surviving member of the Mathe-
matical Society, William Wilson, presented in 1847 twenty-five
engraved portraits, which included thirteen of the twenty-three
engravings of Newton.
Classed with gifts which show the attachment of Fellows to
the Society should be mentioned Baily's payment of the cost of
volume 13 of the Memoirs, and also Sheepshanks's gift to each of
the Fellows of a print of the engraving of the Society's portrait of
Baily, " a man whose memory must be an object of almost filial
* See Dr. Dreyer's paper " On the Original Form of the Alfonsine Tables,"
M.N., 80, 260.
84 HISTORY OF THE [1840-50
veneration to this Society as long as it preserves its own existence,"
as the Council remark in adverting to the gift (1846 February).
Later, Baily's sister presented the bust which stands in our hall,
" a faithful and charming reproduction " Herschel says of it, " of
features we have so often seen in this place, animated with the pure
love of science and with deep interest in the welfare of this
Society."
Assistant Secretaries. J. Hartnup, who has been mentioned
above, was one of three men, each of considerable ability, who held
during the decade the office of Assistant Secretary, upon which so
much of the amenity and even effectiveness of the Society depends.
Hartnup was a man of energy, and was appointed in 1843 to the
charge of the observatory which the Mersey Docks and Harbour
Board was about to establish at Liverpool. He superintended its
equipment though, as usual, Airy had a large say in this became
a Fellow in 1844, an d contributed frequently to the proceedings, in
particular a description of an improved form of chronometer balance.
He was succeeded by R. Harris, who has also been mentioned above,
" a well-informed and indeed accomplished man," " a student of the
arts of painting and music," of the " propriety of whose manners "
the Astronomer Royal bears witness in recommending him. He
only held office till 1846, dying of consumption in his 35th year.
J. Williams followed, well-known subsequently for his work on
Chinese Astronomy. He was a Fellow of the Society at the
time of his appointment, having been admitted as one of the
members of the Mathematical Society, and his knowledge of the
library of that Society, which was in process of examination, and
which proved both valuable and interesting, was immediately
useful. He resigned his fellowship on his appointment as Assistant
Secretary.
Monthly Notices. In those days the Memoirs were the chief
vehicle of the Society's publications. The Monthly Notices were a
compilation by the Secretaries from such material as was available,
and seldom comprised more than an abstract of an author's com-
munication. In 1847 the system was reformed. Thereafter,
Monthly Notices became more full and more denned in form. Their
contents were to be considered a substantive record of the proceed-
ings of the Society, a portion of its Memoirs ; in it alone were printed
such observations or papers as had an immediate interest or were
in a transition state of reduction. Sheepshanks undertook the
responsible work of editing them. He inserted an explanatory
note prefacing volume 8. The compression and arrangement of
the matter was left in great degree to his discretion. In arranging
and condensing the Notices for they still were largely abstracts
he avoided the exercise of any criticism ; it was his object to repre-
1840-50] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 85
sent the views of each contributor in his own language, but he is
careful to note that acquiescence with suggestions brought under
notice is not to be implied from any silence on his part. Sheep-
shanks's principal object was to assist in combining and regulating
the work of British astronomers, and to publish authentic, original
information respecting the progress of astronomy throughout the
Empire, and admirably he did his work. Extracts from other
journals such as Comptes Rendus or Astronomische Nachrichten
were definitely excluded.
This plan was revised, or rather confirmed, after trial, in sub-
sequent years. In the Report of 1849, we read " in the Monthly
Notices there is no attempt made to alter the sense of any com-
munication ; if it is tolerably ingenious and not positively absurd,
the substance is printed in the author's words, compressing the
language as much as possible. If a paper appears unworthy of
attention (and the Society receives two or three such every session)
the nature of the contents is briefly reported to the Council, and a
Committee is appointed, to whose judgment the paper is referred."
This seems fair-minded, almost to the point of indulgence. " The
lucubrations of those authors who treat every science, unknown to
themselves, as a new science, and also conceive that astronomy
is yet to be discovered or rather guessed, without geometry, or
analysis, or dynamics, are either deposited peacefully in the
archives or returned to their authors at the discretion of the
Secretary." The Councils of those days, and Sheepshanks, knew
as well what was what in astronomy, as any body of men that
could be got together.
The Society's Activities. Perhaps the first impression conveyed,
on looking through these early volumes, is the dryness of the
material in which our predecessors interested themselves. There
was no spectroscopy, no solar physics, no photography. Variables,
photometry generally, meteors, parallaxes, systematic proper
motions, were all in their infancy. Geometrical and gravitational
astronomy had alone attained their full growth and strength.
Number after number of Monthly Notices is filled mainly with obser-
vations and ephemerides of the numerous comets that were dis-
covered, and in the second half of the decade, of the steadily growing
family of minor planets. But it was not the view of the Society in
those days that the scope was narrow. " It is obvious," wrote the
Council in 1845,* " that this is a period of great activity and that
all parts of practical astronomy are in full cultivation " ; and again
in i848,f " at the time when this Society obtained its Charter, it was
a circumstance not infrequently remarked upon that there was a
comparative paucity of great things, accompanied by a constant and
* Memoirs, 15, 407. f Ibid., 17, 135.
86 HISTORY OF THE [1840-50
gradual improvement of routine. Results of remarkable thought,
as well as those of remarkable toil, though not wanting, were not
abounding as in the days of William Herschel and Laplace," whereas
at the epoch of writing there was an actual plethora. The Council
discerned the signs of their time correctly. Their concern was
that Fellows did not show themselves active enough in sending
in those minor communications necessary to keep alive interest
at the meetings, which Monthly Notices were expressly designed to
sift and then to preserve. The question is touched again in 1847.*
" Notwithstanding the signs of activity at home and abroad, and
while congratulating our members on the state of astronomical
science and the share which this Society has taken in its progress,
we may be permitted to remark that a little want of method and
perseverance is to be regretted among some of our body. Several
gentlemen possess instruments quite, or nearly, on a par with those
of our public observatories, but the actual produce is scanty.
It is probable that observations have frequently been made and
registered, and even reduced, which have been kept back from a
fear of shewing some inexpertness in the minutiae of practical
astronomy. . . . The friendly advice and criticism of the Members
of Council are always at the service of any Fellow, so far, at least,
as that knowledge extends." On another occasion they point
out a profitable field for zealous cultivators of astronomy in assist-
ing the production of ephemerides of newly discovered planets
and comets, for which up to then the Society was mostly indebted
to Hind and Adams, or to communications from Schumacher.
Some of the Fellows. One would be a poor judge of excellence
of character who did not admire men like Baily, Sheepshanks, and
De Morgan, to mention no others, and deliberately omitting those
whom we now reckon more eminent as astronomers, for the way
they guided and shaped the Society. De Morgan, it is true, has
other signal claims to regard. His personal brilliance, his learning,
at once extensive and minute, historical and modern, his hold on the
best mathematics of the day, much in advance of his contemporaries,
have made his name rather increase than diminish with the inter-
vening decades. But in his relations to the Council it is his personal
side that concern us, that master passion for principle which was
more than any reward or success to him. It finds an interesting ex-
pression in the memorial notice of William Frend, his father-in-law.
Scientifically, Frend was c, bit of a paradoxer, a man who objected
to negative quantities, and looked coldly even upon fractions ;
but if anyone is interested in De Morgan's point of view, let him
read that biography for the way he brings out the beauty and
nobility of that simple, self-reliant, truthful character. Little
* Memoirs, 16, 552.
1840-50] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 87
more than mention can be made here of other greater astronomers
in the Society. Herschel during most of this decade was occupied
in preparing and publishing his survey of the southern heavens ;
he was frequently absent from the meetings and the Council,
though several communications show his interest in the Society's
affairs, great and small. Airy was at the height of the prestige
which he was to retain so long by right of sheer efficiency. His
productiveness, the clarity and beautiful form he gave to his
numerous contributions, made him invaluable in the meetings.
Later, Adams's power made itself felt over his youth and unassuming
personality. These men naturally drew the greatest Continental
astronomers, Bessel, Hansen, Schumacher, Otto Struve, into close
personal relations with the Society by direct communications,
by the award of the Medal, by personal visits, or by interesting
extracts from private letters read at the meetings. Yet as I see
the matter, such men did not constitute the Society, rather they
lived upon it. They could have existed as units apart from it ;
it was their audience and their stimulus. The Society was the body
of ordinary men, trained and judicious enough to appreciate and
criticise what was given to them, and to repeat it in some part,
humanising the science, bringing with them what bodies of scholars
so often lack, the ordinary exacting standards of system and
industry learnt in business, and convinced above all, after acquaint-
ance with the world outside, that the rewards of astronomy, such
as they were, were well worth their pursuit. Of such men, the
" talents were solid and sober, rather than brilliant," and Francis
Baily may be taken as their perfected type.
Baily. Baily died in the year 1844, and at a Special General
Meeting convoked to hear a memoir upon his work, it was unani-
mously resolved that " the Society feels it impossible to express in
adequate terms its obligations to its late President " for he occupied
the Chair that year ; but what a resolution was too narrow to convey,
Herschel's memoir supplies. Herschel's eloquence, often too florid
for our present taste, is here sobered by the evident determination
not to miss one lineament of his friend or to distort the sterling
character he loved so much by any touch of exaggeration. If
we were asked to-day how Baily stood as a scientific man, I suppose
it would be held he was rather second-rate. His work has not
stood very well. His pendulum work contains serious oversights.
The Cavendish experiment seemed to have defeated him when a
suggestion from Forbes enabled him to complete it. We owe to
him in stellar reduction that unfortunate inversion of Bessel's
notation, in which while the formulae are the same, the meaning
is different, and which unnecessarily separated British and Con-
tinental practice until it was removed from our Nautical Almanac
88 HISTORY OF THE [1840-50
a few years ago. But it would be pedantic to measure Baily
mainly by such a scale. There is hardly space here to draw a
fitting picture of him ; reference may be made to HerschePs
memorial. Suffice it to say that he was born in 1774, made an
extended voyage to the United States, then a somewhat adven-
turous undertaking ; joined a firm of stockbrokers about 1801,
and, having accumulated a fortune sufficient for his desires, retired
from the Stock Exchange at the age of 51. He was an original
member of the Society, and after his retirement from business in
1825, astronomy and the interests of the Society were the undivided
objects of his life. He acted as Secretary for the first three years
of the Society, prepared all the reports of Council up to the year
of his death, and was elected President on four occasions. " To
term Mr. Baily a man of brilliant genius or great invention,"
Herschel writes, " would in effect be doing him wrong." It was
his character that left its mark ; "its impressiveness was more
felt on reflection than on the instant, for it consisted in the
absence of all that was obtrusive or imposing, without the pos-
sibility of that absence being misconstrued into a deficiency.
Equal to every occasion which arose, either in public or private
life, yet when not called forth or when others occupied the field,
content to be unremarked ; ... his temper, always equable and
cheerful, . . . was a bond of kindness and union to all around
him, and inspired an alacrity of spirit into every affair in which
the co-operation of others was needed, . . . and brought out
the latent warmth of every disposition. Order, method, and
regularity are the essence of business, and these qualities pervaded
all proceedings in which he took a part, and, indeed, all his habits
of life. . . . This was not so much the result of acquired habits
as a man of business, as a natural consequence of his practical
views, and an emanation of that clear, collected spirit of which
even his ordinary handwriting was no uncertain index." One
could continue to quote for the pleasure of it, but these extracts
are enough. One sees the man he was, and why the Society
could find no language to express what it owed to him.
The Society's Outlook. But to return to the general policy of the
Society. While the Society showed such a proper concern to draw
all its members, even the less expert, into active participation, it
regarded its own duties to astronomy as of the widest and most
responsible kind. It was an international exchange and assessor
of values, particularly in questions of the award of the Gold Medal.
It performed this duty generally in an attitude of judicial imparti-
ality. In regard to the Neptune question, the Council refers to the
necessity of " guarding against the undue influence of national
feeling," and adds that in this question where a French and an
1840-50] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 89
English claim are mixed, it is not to be regretted that the Society
was debarred by the operation of its own laws from deciding between
them, of which more hereafter.
Parallax : Bessel and Henderson. This careful balance is well
exemplified in the case of the Medal awarded to Bessel for the
first unquestionable determination of a stellar parallax. This
was in 1841. Astronomy had long been plagued with will-o'-the-
wisp parallaxes. The annual variation that was looked for
opened possibilities of confusion with seasonal changes which
might be atmospheric or of various other kinds. The meridian
methods employed were not well adapted either for absolute or
the highest class of differential determination. Unless a clear,
confirmed progression could be shown month by month through
the cycle, which could arise from no other cause, suspense and
even scepticism was the proper attitude. It has already been
mentioned above that Henderson had returned from the Cape in
1833, bringing with him his observations for reduction. He
aimed to be, and was, as thorough and careful of instrumental
details as Bessel himself, and his discussion of the removal of
errors from readings of the Cape mural circle was accepted as a
model. In 1839 he produced his discussion of observations of
a Centauri. The declination, subjected to every test that he could
put, agreed with a parallax of about I ". Yet by common consent,
perhaps not excluding Henderson's own, the matter was held as
not proven, until Maclear, his successor, should produce a further
series that would confirm it. The amount was felt to be large.
We now know that the parallax is large, the modern accepted
value is o"-y6 ; it is the nearest lucid star yet found ; but Struve
had shown, twenty years earlier, that not one out of 27 circumpolar
stars whose right ascensions he had examined possessed a parallax
of half a second. The confirmation was forthcoming in 1842 ;
but it was not reassuring that twenty other stars in Maclear's list
showed an average prima facie parallax of o"-3. Not one of these
has been confirmed. Henderson remarks : "In a conversation I
had with M. Bessel," whose friendship was his boast and delight,
and whom he consciously took as his model in matters astro-
nomical, " he expressed his wish that a Centauri were observed
with a heliometer, or good equatoreal, capable of precise micro-
metrical measurement ; he said he had doubts of the results
derived from meridian instruments. He mentioned the case of
Dr. Brinkley's parallaxes, and stated that in his own observatory
two excellent meridian circles, placed beside each other, gave at
certain seasons places of the pole star that differed from each other ;
the reason of which disagreement he had not found out." On the
other hand, Bessel's own heliometer measures of 61 Cygni left no
90 HISTORY OF THE [1840-50
shadow of doubt that the displacements observed were actually
the proportionate projections of the earth's orbit and nothing else.
All these points were surveyed critically in the most careful way
by Main (Memoirs, 12). It was a just estimate of the actual
position that awarded the Medal to Bessel in 1841. Henderson
has sometimes been blamed for undue caution and delay. This
seems a wrong view of the case ; with the means at his disposal,
caution and confirmation were an obligation. After his results
were confirmed, the Council felt that he too should have recogni-
tion. But they missed the right opportunity for action. In
1843 the material was before them, and no name was proposed
for the Medal. In 1844 November, Henderson's name was put
forward, but in the same month he died. In the same month
too, a painful, long and, as it proved, a fatal illness removed
Bessel from the scene.
The figure of Bessel, loved and admired, has filled a prominent
place in the development of astronomy ; it will continue to do so ;
astronomy won him, with its peculiar appeal, in the first flush of
his genius and strength, from his clerkship in a merchant's office.
He established its foundation as much as it could be given to one
man to do. It is surprising that a man with so great an impulse
for thoroughness could bring so many works to definite conclusions.
For example, he began his studies with the Kcenigsberg heliometer
by devoting a paper to the trigonometrical calculation of the
field of its object glass. He was known in this country chiefly by
his writings, but he visited it in 1842, when he passed a week,
along with Jacobi, in Henderson's company at Edinburgh and in
the Highlands, and stayed with Herschel, who learnt from him his
intention of investigating the errors of Uranus on the hypothesis
of an exterior planet.
Fame has given Bessel no more than he earned, but it has done
less than justice to Henderson. There can be no thought of com-
paring the two men together ; Henderson was avowedly a culti-
vator of the methods of others. " At the outset of his career
he was led (probably by the commendation of them in our
Memoirs) to study attentively the methods of the German astro-
nomers, particularly those of Bessel and Struve, upon whose
model he formed his practice, and from which he never departed."
I would remark that as astronomy expands, the originator of
methods, especially where they involve increase of labour, renders
himself more and more ineffectual by his own advances, unless
he finds unselfish, able, appreciative imitators to apply his
methods far and wide. It needs those qualities, and imagination
as well, to see that it is worth doing. Henderson never had a
good instrument to work with. It was entirely due to his care
FRANCIS BAILY
(1774-1844)
To face, p. 90.]
1840-50] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 91
that any result of value could be derived from observations with
the Cape mural circle. After Henderson's time the circle was
sent back to England in 1840 to be overhauled, and to Simms'
and Airy's great astonishment it turned out that the steel collar
was virtually loose upon the pivot ; it had never been shrunk on,
but was merely attached by soft solder. Yet Henderson undoubt-
edly exhibited the parallax of a Centauri in the measures of zenith
distance derived with this instrument. All his other work was
equally well judged. At the time of which we write he was living
at Edinburgh, but he had formerly spent frequent periods in
London, and so was well known to members of Council. Amiable
and unobtrusive, he was very modest about his own merits. The
biographical notice of his work in 1845 February is written from
personal knowledge. " The character of Mr. Henderson as an
astronomer stands high, and his name will go down to posterity
as an accurate observer, an industrious computer, a skilful mani-
pulator, and an improver of methods in that department fo which
he devoted himself. . . . Every observation is scrupulously
discussed, ... his processes are fully explained, no labour is
evaded, and no circumstance that can affect the accuracy of the
final result is passed unnoticed. . . . One of his most distin-
guishing qualities was sound judgment. He never attempted
anything to which his powers were not fully equal ; and, as a
consequence of this, whatever he did he did well."
Hansen. In 1842 the Medal was awarded to Hansen for his new
methods in planetary and lunar theory. The work had then been
applied in outline to the theory of Jupiter and Saturn, and formally,
to the moon in the work Disquisitio Nova. The great task of cal-
culating the moon's inequalities numerically was still unperformed.
It is instructive of the advanced position of gravitational astronomy
at that epoch to read Lord Wrottesley's excellent address in
making this award. The statement of what Hansen had aimed
at and accomplished in his new theory could hardly be improved.
The attitude of Hansen to the Society is also interesting. Shortly
after this award he found an improvement of his method applicable
to the perturbations of very eccentric and highly inclined orbits.
He wrote at once to Airy, " I hasten to communicate to you a piece
of astronomical intelligence of some importance," and later to
Rothman, the Secretary, in similar terms. The Council registered
a suitable note of thanks and congratulation on a method " which
we are thus far entitled to regard as a most brilliant conquest
over one of the residual difficulties of physical astronomy."
The Council had not at that time any practice or unwritten
law which restrained it from awarding the Medal to one of its own
body. In 1843 it was awarded to Baily, on the completion of the
92 HISTORY OF THE [1840-50
Cavendish experiment. In 1844 none was awarded. In 1845,
Airy, as President, handed it to W. H. Smyth, then Foreign
Secretary, for the Bedford Catalogue ; in 1846, Smyth, as President,
handed it to Airy for completing the old Greenwich planetary
reductions. As regards this award Smyth remarks, "It is, of
course, understood, and has always been acted upon, that work,
however excellent and useful, does not enter into competition
when it only follows the necessary duty of the author. . . . Now
the weighty reductions in question come before us as executed
at the expense of Her Majesty's Government by the Astronomer
Royal. It remains, however, to be added that the undertaking was
proposed by that distinguished individual long before his appoint-
ment to Greenwich." The distinction seems a just one, but it
was hardly necessary to follow, two years later, by an award of a
" Testimonial " to Airy for the parallel lunar reductions, which
were not actually completed for publication at the time when
action was taken.
A Troubled Episode. We now come to a moment when the
Society, from the midst of its harmonious activities, was suddenly
precipitated into an acute and bitter controversy, which died down
again as rapidly as it had arisen, because no facts were in dispute and
there was nothing to controvert. We read in 1846 January, " The
addition of a new planet to the Solar System is a fact so interesting
and important in astronomy, as to require that the numerous com-
munications of which it has already been the subject should be
treated and discussed in the publications of this Society with a
greater regard to classification and arrangement than is necessary, or
indeed always practicable, in other cases of less prominent interest.
... It is proposed therefore to give, first, a brief historical
notice of its discovery, and of the manner in which the search
after it was prosecuted " ; and the next month, among the reports
on Observatories, " At Cambridge, the observations of comets
and of the new planet have for the present superseded those of
double stars." These passages relate to the planet Q Astrsea, dis-
covered by Hencke, after a blank of thirty-nine years, the first of a
fresh stream that has never since ceased to flow. A little haziness
in one's dates might quite well leave the impression that they
referred to Neptune. It would have been easily within possibility.
In 1841, Adams had "formed a design as soon as possible after
taking my degree," of investigating the perturbations of Uranus
on the supposition that their unexplained portion was due to the
action of an exterior unknown planet. He collected his material,
and in the year 1843 he had determined a preliminary place for
the body, which was as near the truth as Challis expected his final
place to be. The next year he fortified his discussion, and was able
1840-50] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 93
to communicate the concluded position in 1845 September to
Challis, and in October of the same year to Airy. No one else
knew it ; Adams told nobody, neither did Challis, neither did Airy,
and as far as the Society was concerned nothing happened until
the November meeting of the following year.
"J. C. Adams, Esq., B.A., Fellow and Assistant Tutor of
St. John's College, Cambridge," was balloted for, and duly elected
a Fellow of the Society in 1845 November. Previous to that he had
contributed, in 1844 January, a paper on " Elements of the Comet
of Faye," communicated by Prof. Challis, where, after computing
an elliptic orbit, " the author suggests that the comet may, perhaps,
not have been moving long in its present orbit, and that, as in the
case of the comet of 1770, we are indebted to the action of Jupiter
for its present apparition " ; and proceeds to show that the planet
and comet must have made a near approach so recently as the
year 1840. Not a bad first paper, and one that might have drawn
some attention to its author. In 1846 April he must have attended
the meeting, for he " presented a diagram showing the relative
positions of the heads of Beila's comet, and deducing the velocity
of the smaller head, finds that its periodic time is 8-48 days longer
than the periodic time of the larger."
Le V errier* s Publication. In 1846 June, Le Verrier published the
paper which was the culmination of his investigations upon Uranus,
and in which he produced the position of a disturbing planet that
would account for the unexplained errors, agreeing in the closest
possible way with that which Adams had assigned. It is an extra-
ordinary thing that Adams did not seize the occasion to make some
announcement of his own parallel, completer, and earlier determina-
tion. But Adams was in some respects very immature, and all his
life was beset by a peculiar reluctance to performing any ordinary
conclusive act, like publishing a paper or even writing a letter.
The same cannot be said of Airy. He was immensely struck with
Le Verrier's paper. He wrote to him at once to say so, and at
the same time put to him his famous poser, his experimentum crucis,
of the explanation of the errors in the radius vector of Uranus
by the same means, which he had also put to Adams, and to which
Adams had not sent a reply. The singular thing about this letter
is that it did not contain a single word, a hint, that Airy had already
had for seven months past, in a pigeon-hole at Greenwich, identi-
cally the same explanation of the anomalies of Uranus in consider-
ably greater completeness. It would have interested Le Verrier
vastly to know it. It would have prevented the resentment and
the charge of disingenuousness which was, not unnaturally, the
first feeling which the French expressed on the introduction of
Adams's name at a later date. One wonders what Airy proposed
94 HISTORY OF THE [1840-50
to do about Adams ? He was no novice in reading astronomical
documents, and whatever importance he may have attached to
an extra verification, he cannot, in my opinion, have been under
any doubt of the significance of the brief paper of results which
Adams had left with him in 1845 October, or have supposed that
the explanation they offered could be explained away. Yet as
for any spontaneous action of his own, then or later, until the force
of circumstances had established Adams in a secure position, he
seems to have been willing to let Adams's claim and achievement
perish unknown. In excuse for judging so severely Airy's attitude,
one must remember the peculiar eminence of his position ; he was
the official guardian of British astronomy, and even of science in
general, as no one else has ever been ; he deliberately made such
a position for himself by cultivating connections at home and
abroad, both within and without the borders of his science ; and
he was at all times a man of rapid and effective action, never
too busy to take up something new.
Anyway, Airy came to the conclusion before the Greenwich
Visitation in June, that the planet must be searched for, and that
the Northumberland equatoreal, at Cambridge, should be set to the
work. He mentioned it to the Visitors as a matter of necessary
division of labour, and referred to Adams's confirmation of Le
Verrier. Herschel was present, and seized the importance of the
point at once. The idea was not a new one. Hansen and E.
Bouvard had canvassed it. As long before as 1842, Bessel had been
Herschel 's guest and had talked with him over the errors of
Uranus. He was going to devote attention to it on his return
home, and would consider the explanation offered by an exterior
planet. He wrote to Herschel afterwards : "I announce to you
(melde ich Ihnen) that Uranus is not forgotten," and in fact a
young astronomer, Flemming, was engaged by him upon pre-
liminary work at the time of his fatal illness. Herschel felt
no doubt of the existence of the planet, and announced the im-
pending discovery, as far as he felt entitled to do, at the meeting
of the British Association in the course of the summer.
Unfortunately the use of the Northumberland telescope meant
Challis's direction of operations. It may be admitted that Challis
was a man of no imagination. The Athenaeum, in one of its com-
ments on the event, speaks of " the wise men who never believe
until the thing is done, the sober men to whom everything that is
to be is a figment in the brain of a visionary, the practical men who
are not quite sure there is a future until it runs by them in the shape
of time present." Challis was one of them. The search had no
attraction for him. One might suppose he did not want to dis-
cover the planet, for when his eye lighted actually upon it in the
1840-50] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 95
course of his sweeps, and he made the note " appears to have a
disc," he was not sufficiently interested to verify it on the first
opportunity. We may agree he did not deserve to find it. It is
always a pity when fortune favours the slothful and nerveless.
While he continued his slow work, Galle, at Berlin, following
Le Verrier's directions, and with the advantage of a good map,
found it on the first night of his search, within a degree of the place
assigned. Thereupon Herschel wrote to the Aihenceum, publicly
introducing Adams's name for the first time, and immediately
after Challis published in the same journal an account of his
search.
The Academy. The French might adopt for themselves the
saying, " If it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending
soul alive." Le Verrier's feat was in direct line with their most
illustrious tradition. The direct consequence of Herschel's and
Challis's statements was simply not accepted. They were not
willing that the newcomer should have any share in the glory. Airy
had written to Le Verrier in June and he had said no word of this.
Then Airy wrote to Le Verrier again. Adams apparently did exist,
but was referred to only in a cryptic way, as though an unpleasing
official obligation would compel some perfunctory public reference
to him, which Le Verrier must not misinterpret. Airy was sur-
prised that his own name entered at all in the discussions that
followed in the sessions of the Academy. " The introduction of my
name appears somewhat strange. I have made no public statement
whatever regarding the new planet. I have written on it to no
foreigner whatever excepting M. Le Verrier himself, and my letters
to him (containing some historical statements) were intended to
have the most friendly character." In remarking on the course
of events in the Account read before the Society, he says, " It will
be readily understood that I do not [quote this letter] as a testi-
mony to my own sagacity." If he supposed, as he seems to have
done, that Adams might be dropped into an oubliette, of which
the history of science has some grim stories, it showed very little
sagacity. The French were not under any delusion about it.
They saw their great personal and national achievement assailed,
and they were not willing to share it in any degree. There followed
an excited session of the Academy, in which Arago's speech may
be taken as fairly voicing the feeling. He denied Adams any title
whatever to be referred to in connection with the discovery, and
personally pledged himself to use no name except Le Verrier's
Planet. The wilder talk which passed there and outside, especially
in the National newspaper, was expressly disowned by both
Arago and Le Verrier.
The Society's Meeting. The crisis arose and matured, and the
96 HISTORY OF THE [1840-50
storm burst, between the rising of the Society in June and its
reassembly on November 14. At that meeting, with W. H. Smyth
in the Chair, after " John Riddle, Esq., Second Master of the
Nautical School, Greenwich Hospital, was balloted for and duly
elected a Fellow of the Society," the three most remarkable com-
munications were made which the Society can ever expect to
receive in one night. The first was Airy 's c ' Account of some circum-
stances historically connected with the discovery of the Planet
exterior to Uranus." As the Athenceum says, it took the character
of a defence of himself by the Astronomer Royal, for not having
acted sooner in instituting a search for the planet. The second
was Challis's pitiful story, surely no feebler one was ever told.
To do it justice, it is candid. No one would dream of doubting
its veracity, for what could induce any man to produce a tale of
that complexion ? The third paper was Adams's " Explanation
of the observed irregularities in the motion of Uranus"
Airy knew how to write. When he was a young man at Cam-
bridge he made it a practice to purify his style by translating, and
retranslating back again, to compare with an original model. His
Account consists almost entirely of letters and extracts from
documents connected together by a brief and lucid comment.
It strikes me as extraordinarily effective in meeting a tangled
situation. Again, no one can possibly doubt its facts. But it
leaves one completely at a loss to know why he was so ready to
ignore Adams and accept Le Verrier. He never answered this.
His radius-vector question was little more than a pretext. A year
later, when Otto Struve wrote to him, " L'histoire impartiale, dans
Pavenir, citera honorablement et a cote de M. Le Verrier le nom
de M. Adams, et reconnaitra deux individus qui ont decouvert,
Tun independamment de 1'autre, la planete au dela de 1'Uranus,"
Airy hastened to endorse the judgment. But by that time Adams
was securely established. Adams freely admitted himself to blame
for not sending Airy an answer to his question, trivial though he
regarded it. But Airy never wrote a word that admitted he had
himself wronged Adams by his neglect. It is not unfair to him to
say that he preferred for himself the obloquy, that he was ready
to exalt the mighty in their seats and to put down the humble
and meek.
Adams's Explanation is also a remarkable paper. Consider
what evidence of immaturity and inexperience he had otherwise
shown. Partly by his own constitutional incapacity for action,
partly because he was unfortunate in his associates, what everyone
then acclaimed the greatest glory of the human mind had been his,
and had slipped through his hands, into another's. And he is said
at the meeting to have behaved like a bashful boy. But the inves-
London, Published- by Jfacmill&n. & C c .
1840-50] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 97
tigation is as finished, cool, and judicious as a studied report on
things wholly remote from the writer. There is not a phrase of
complaint, bitterness, or regret. There is hardly a personal word
at all, except one generous passage conceding the whole glory to
Le Verrier. By the energy of Stratford, who was Superintendent
of the Nautical Almanac, this powerful memoir was immediately
printed and issued as Appendix to the Nautical Almanac of 1851,
and was thus circulated over the whole world early in January of
1847, before the Council met to settle the award of the Medal.
Copies were also circulated by Schumacher with an issue of
Astronomische Nachrichten.
The Medal Hitherto the Society had been, first innocent of the
whole affair, then an astonished and excited auditor. Now it had
to mark its own judgment upon it. When one is suddenly precipi-
tated before an insoluble problem or into a hopelessly embarrassed
situation, what can one do except talk about it ? By the Rules,
names proposed for the Medal were submitted at the November
meeting and the recipient selected in January. It was decided to
propose every name that might conceivably come before the Council.
Airy accordingly proposed Le Verrier, Adams, and Challis, thereby
contriving to walk down both sides and the middle of the road to
show his impartiality. Galle, Argelander, and Hencke were also
proposed. Before the January meeting, Adams's memoir was in
the hands of the Council, and Le Verrier's name, coming up for
a confirmatory vote, failed to receive the three-to-one majority
which the Bye-laws required. " It seems to have been thought
by several that an award to M. Le Verrier, unaccompanied by
another to Mr. Adams, would be drawing a greater distinction
between the two than fairly represents the proper inference from
facts, and would be an injustice to the latter." Therefore no
award was made. " Perhaps there is not one among the Council
who does not, more or less, censure the collective body to which
he belongs for not adopting a positive course ; while perhaps
there are very few indeed who could agree upon any one mode of
proceeding." The same Report contains some interesting remarks
upon the responsibility of the Council, and the delegation of powers
of action to it by the Society. Such a delegation is in fact and
practice almost complete, and much greater than the Bye-laws
assert. A possible solution considered by the Council was to
recommend the General Meeting to suspend the existing Bye-law
which required that not more than one Medal should be awarded
in any year. In effect this would have been an invitation to the
meeting to decide the disputed award. It was contended that
" the spirit of the laws would be violated, to the introduction of
every disadvantage which those laws were intended to avoid, if
7
9 8 HISTORY OF THE [1840-50
a more than usually difficult question were submitted to the Society,
of the very kind which the Society had peculiarly delegated to
the Council, even in the ordinary and easier cases." Accordingly
no such proposal emanated from the Council, but at the meeting
several amendments were proposed, of different complexions. A
Special General Meeting was assembled the following month to
consider the suspension of the Bye-law ; but this meeting decided
to accept the advice of the Council and to proceed no further in
the matter.
The Council remembers with great satisfaction the amiable
tone in which the above differences, more serious than any which had
ever prevailed in the Society, were discussed at the meetings ; and
they feel assured that in no public body can the prospect of dis-
union arising out of divided deliberation be smaller than in ours.
It is not now very easy to make out what views were held by
what members. Perhaps it may be taken that every possible
course found its advocate. It is certain that some of the sternest
upholders of Le Verrier as against Adams were found in our own
Society and in these islands. The point upon which stress was laid,
that Adams had failed to make a technical " publication " of his
results, and was thereby disentitled to any share in the credit of
the discovery, will strike most people, on review, as extraordinarily
narrow and pedantic, even if not wholly a misdirection. The words
of Herschel in 1849 upon another occasion, when Bond and Lassell
simultaneously had discovered Hyperion from opposite sides of
the Atlantic, are worth attention. They can hardly fail to have
reference to the earlier difficult case of Neptune. " If I am right
in the principle that discovery consists in the certain knowledge
of a new fact or a new truth, a knowledge grounded upon positive
and tangible evidence, as distinct from bare suspicion or surmise
that such a fact exists, or that such a proposition is true if I
am right in assigning as the moment of discovery that moment
when the discoverer is first enabled to say to himself, as to a
bystander, 4 1 am sure that such is the fact, and I am sure of it,
for such and such reasons,' reasons subsequently acquiesced in as
valid ones when the discovery comes to be known and acknow-
ledged, if I say, I am right in this principle (and I can really find
no better)," and so forth. This may not be the easiest principle to
follow in making an award according to law, but there is little doubt
that it will accord with subsequent settled opinion of what is just.
Testimonials, But the Society was not yet out of the wood.
In the course of the year, no facts being in dispute, opinion settled
down to a pretty definite form, from which it has not since much
varied. But when November came round, something required to
1840-50] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 99
be done with regard to the award of the Medal. Agreement upon
a single award was, of course, out of the question. The solution
adopted was remarkable. Several new titles had arisen in the
course of the year that might be held as claims for recognition.
" It seemed as if astronomy had exhibited the results of every
kind of human aid, and had chosen the year 1847 to show how
well she could at once command the highest speculations of
mathematical intellect, the laborious perseverance of calculating
toil, the discriminating sagacity of the observer, the munificence of
mercantile wealth, and the self-devotion of the voluntary exile."
When our grandfathers indulge in a sentence like that, we can only
bow and stand aside. They decided not to suspend the Bye-law
which limited them to one Medal, but to award Testimonials, as
many as the occasion demanded. Everybody who was proposed got
one, twelve in all, Hansen, Hencke, Herschel, Hind, Lubbock,
Le Verrier, Adams, Argelander, Bishop, Airy, Everest, Weisse. The
proposals were made by Airy and De Morgan, except Weisse's
name, which Galloway added. Hencke and Hind had each by that
time two minor planets to their credit. Bishop got it for main-
taining his observatory. Airy for the Greenwich lunar reductions
(not then completed). Hansen had received the Medal as recently
as 1842, and Airy in 1846, Herschel, Hind, Airy, and Adams were
on the Council. So with this remarkable procession of talent
the troubled incident passes out of our annals. The action of the
Council cut the knot, at the expense of prematurely rewarding
some and unnecessarily rewarding others, robbing the gift of its
one value, rarity and distinction, offending against good taste
by rewarding several of its own members, and depleting future
years of many of their best candidates.
But immediately after the awards fall into their old excellent
habit, with Lassell in 1849 for his 24-inch speculum and discoveries
of satellites with it, and Otto Struve in 1850.
The Mathematical Society, 1717. One of the most interesting
events of this decade was the absorption in 1846 of the Society
of Mathematicians of Spitalfields. From the earliest days of our
Society our Memoirs were presented to the Mathematical Society,
for the latter was our senior by more than a century. It was
founded in 1717 by one John Middleton, whose portrait we
possess. The portrait shows a man of benevolent and practical
appearance, holding a geometrical diagram ; a ship under sail
is in the background. It is conjectured he may have been a
mariner, who gave instruction in navigation. I give here what
is recorded of this curious Society ; one would wish to know
more, but its early activities can only be guessed from the library
it collected. The first Minute-books in existence date from 1800,
ioo HISTORY OF THE [1840-50
and reveal the Society suddenly confronted by a most real
and substantial danger. A gang of informers had laid an infor-
mation against some of the members ; its tenour is not quoted,
but one of the members, Gompertz, afterwards told De Morgan
that the charge was for taking money for an unlicensed enter-
tainment, being a philosophical lecture. The members, about
forty or fifty in number, raised in a few days a voluntary guarantee
fund of 254, one of them undertook without payment the pro-
fessional part of the defence, and the informers were beaten off
at a cost of about 43 in expenses. These vermin do not seem to
have been liable to any punishment for their baseless charge, for
they went away threatening to return to the attack. But though
the charge was rebutted, it appears to have carried with it a
certain scandal, for we find it noted that the " produce of the
lectures delivered in 1799-1800 had been very materially diminished
by the effect of the information lodged against several of the
members by the Gang of Informers, who have occasioned so much
trouble and expense to the Society during the past year." The
Society, which was very straightforward and democratic in its
constitution, levied a charge of threepence a week on each member,
calculating that in about eighteen months that would repay what
some of them had advanced to meet the expenses. Some of
our Minutes refer to the " respectability " of the Mathematical
Society. That it was fully " respectable " in the modern sense
may be conceded. Among the motions in its Minute-books is
one " that every member who may so far forget himself in the
warmth of debate as to threaten or offer personal violence to any
other member, be liable to be expelled." But that, after all, is
an evidence of the desire to keep good order. In 1802 an applica-
tion was made and agreed to, to hire the premises, when not in
use, for the purposes of a Sunday School.
The Society was united on a democratic and social footing.
There is little or no academical trace in its membership. De
Morgan says it consisted originally of Spitalfields weavers, but of
these there is no trace after 1800. The new admissions seem to
have been, indifferently, tradesmen and professional men from the
immediate neighbourhood. Thus we find several surgeons and
attorneys, a wine merchant, a mason, a tinplate worker, a hair-
dresser, a chemist and druggist, a mathematical-instrument
maker, a watch-case maker, a watchmaker, a " plaisterer," a
painter, a dyer, an Exchange broker, a glass-cutter, a schoolmaster,
apparently any ingenious man of any occupation was welcome.
Two intriguing occupations are " Gentleman of the Prerogative
Office," and " Galenical Operator in Apothecaries' Hall." There
are no distinguished names.
1840-50] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 101
Its Rules. It was one of the Rules that it is the duty of
every member to answer the best way he is able any mathe-
matical or philosophical question that may be asked of him.
Failing which he was fined twopence. These discussions were
sped with the help of pipes and porter. After the unpleasant
shock of the Information the use of these adjuncts to philosophy
was stopped, as an institution, in 1801, and left to the private
taste of members ; but the change was not a success, " the small
number attending on Saturday evenings arises in great measure
from their not drinking in common," and the old custom was
restored. Another Standing Rule provided that " every member
shall in rotation give a lecture or perform some experiment on
Saturday evenings." As a reward for these lectures, medals
were given. There should be some of these in existence, as prior
to 1 80 1 they were " given with too much facility " ; at that date
it was decreed that a larger medal of 2 oz. of silver, and a smaller
one of i oz., should be balloted for ; the scale for voting was
elaborate, 5 excellent, 4 very good, 3 = good, 2 tolerable,
i = scarcely tolerable, o=very indifferent. The medals were to be
presented with due ceremony on Newton's birth-night. No doubt
this habit of holding lectures trained and brought out a number
of capable lecturers, for we find an annual course, open to the
public for a fee, in existence at the beginning of this time. These
lectures were on what would be called Natural Philosophy, and were
illustrated by experiments.
Its Lectures. The purchase of the necessary apparatus resulted
in the collection of a considerable store by the Society. Their
subjects and number varied a little from year to year. One of the
most ambitious courses was held in 1821, when 5 different lecturers
delivered between them 22 lectures in all 3 on Mechanics, 2 on
Hydrostatics, 2 on Pneumatics, 2 on Optics, 3 on Astronomy,
6 on Chemistry, i on Magnetism, 2 on Electricity, and I on Gal-
vanism. The charge for admission to a single lecture was is., and
to the course 155. This course resulted in a net profit of 67, 175. 3d.
to the Society. Similar substantial profits were made in several
years, and the library benefited greatly in consequence. But
a time came when the small body of which the Society always
consisted, found itself unequal to the task. It is reported in 1825
that " great difficulty was found in procuring members to give
the lectures," and they were reminded of the Standing Rule.
But lectures given in obedience to a rule proved unattractive, and
the Society experienced for the first time a loss, amounting to
7, 6s. 8d. Thereafter the lectures seem to have been dropped.
Indeed, the future of the Society itself soon became a cause of
disquiet. It was reported in 1829 that the income of the Society
102 HISTORY OF THE [1840-50
for the past five years had been respectively 146, 151, 135,
140, 105. No new members joined. A valuation was made of
the movable property ; it seems of an optimistic character.
The total was 2649, of which " printed books, maps, and prints "
accounted for 1565, and " instruments, natural history, and
antiquities," 664. One may doubt the value of many of these
curiosities ; in increasing frequency the Society's collection seems
to have become a dumping ground for the domestic superfluities of
its members, skins of penguins, a skeleton of a Borneo monkey,
a head of an antelope, stand outside its pristine functions.
Its Decline. But it struggled on. In 1841 the number of mem-
bers was 30. In 1843 they removed from Crispin Street to 9 Devon-
shire Street, and sold instruments to the value of 70. In 1844 a
motion was made that the library of this Society be given to the
library of the City of London, upon condition that " members of this
Society be permitted to use the same during their lives," but noaction
was taken. A few months later it was proposed that all the books,
pictures, and other chattels be drawn for by the members by lot.
Absorption. At this time the Society consisted of nineteen
members, of whom three Dr. John Lee, Benjamin Gompertz, and
J. J. Downes were also Fellows of our Society. Lee, who was
eminently a good Fellow, took the situation in hand. He talked it
over with our Council, and wrote a letter on 1845 May 10 to the
Mathematical Society. He says, " A meeting of the Council of
the Royal Astronomical Society took place yesterday, and I
brought forward the suggestions contained in your recent letters to
me relating to the venerable Mathematical Society of London,
and the Council were unanimous [in regretting] that this ancient
Society of 130 years' standing should be on the eve of dissolution
and decline. The members of the Council were also, I believe,
unanimous that if the nineteen surviving members of the Mathe-
matical Society should in their liberality and public spirit wish to
keep the mathematical, and astronomical and philosophical
portions of their valuable library together, and should kindly and
considerately offer to present it to the Royal Astronomical Society,
that the Council of the latter would not only be grateful to them
for this act of judicious benevolence, but would be willing to elect
all the members of the Mathematical Society members for life of
the Royal Astronomical Society. . . ." It was arranged that a
visitation should take place by the President and Secretaries,
Smyth, De Morgan, and Galloway. Lee concludes his letter :
" I hope that this matter will terminate successfully and bene-
ficially for both these noble-minded Societies."
Surely no angel ever beckoned more beautifully a spent soul
to euthanasia. The terms proposed were carried out. The
1840-50] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 103
books were transferred, and the instruments, pictures, and curio-
sities divided by lot. Some of the most interesting were afterwards
presented to our Society, Lee making a gift of the portrait of John
Middleton, referred to above, and Mr. William Wilson, the senior
member of the old Society, presenting an album of 25 portraits,
including 13 out of 23 known prints of Newton.
Its Library. The history of the Mathematical Society, so far
as we can glean it, is certainly a very curious episode in British
science. In scientific value it is unfortunately nil, apart from the
collection of a library, but it illustrates a national capacity and
inclination, which our own Society and a host of others also
exemplify, for forming circles with disinterested aims and keeping
them in permanent being. The library consisted of upwards of
2500 volumes. The collected catalogue of them is not now avail-
able. When they were incorporated with our books, many volumes
were described as of an unusual, some of a rare, character ; mostly
mathematics and chemistry of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. Some of the lists of purchases, and a few dozen of the
volumes, handled at random, reveal, for example, Clairaut, Figure
de la Terre ; Commercium Epistolicum ; Euler, Theoria Motus
Lunce ; Boscovich, Opuscula ; Taylor, Sexagesimal Table ; Burck-
hardt's Tables ; Delambre's Tables ; Flamsteed, Historia Ccelestis
and Atlas ; Histoire de V Academic des Sciences, 113 vols., i2mo ;
Euclidis Elementorum Libri XV Greece et Latine, Paris, 1573,
" Liber rarissimus " ; Bernoulli, Doctrine of Permutations, . . .
edited by Francis Maseres, and presented by him, 1795 : Euler,
Institutiones Calculi Integralis ; Arbogast, Calcul des Derivations ;
Robert Boyle, Tracts, 1672 ; d'Alembert and Condorcet, Nouvelles
Experiences sur la Resistance des Fluides, 1777 ; Desaguliers,
Course of Experimental Philosophy, 1763. There are besides the
current English mathematical textbooks of the period, Wood,
Bonnycastle, etc. ; Newton's commentators and diluters figure
pretty strongly. From these specimens it may be accepted that,
what with purchases and what with gifts, the library was a fairly
enterprising collection for its period.
The pathetic thing is, that with all its long life and good inten-
tions the old Mathematical Society never became a place where
men really cultivated mathematics. We live in a country where
a George Green, a Dalton, a Faraday, though rare, of course, are
rather characteristic than singular. On a lower scale one Fellow,
Professor Wallace, of Edinburgh, who died in this period, was a
bookbinder's apprentice, who began his own education on the
books of science which passed through his hands. The mathe-
matics he wrote, about 1800, though no great affair, are quite in
line with the developments of analysis which Euler had taught.
104 HISTORY OF THE [1840-50
The Small Achievement. But we were still in the period of that
long blight on English mathematics, following Newton's flights,
which were nowhere more wonderful than in pure mathematics.
Whether from anti- Continental feeling, or from national obstinacy,
or the idea that the tangible methods of geometry offered the sure
slow road to truth, our workers crippled themselves. The period
of Euler, d'Alembert, Legendre, Lagrange, Laplace, Abel, Cauchy,
Jacobi, Gauss, passed over their heads almost without attracting
their remark. Oxford and Cambridge were no exception. Thomas
Young was not to the taste of Professor Vince : " What do you
think of a man writing on mechanics who does not understand
the principle of the coach- wheel ? " Professor Vince asked.
I have often wondered what is the principle of the coach-wheel.
No doubt it is enshrined in many a problem paper of the period ;
it is sufficient, however, that it excluded from that gentleman's
field of view matters we have come to think more important.
The old Mathematical Society was no worse than this ; the
pathetic thing is that though unhampered by interest or tradition,
it was no better. The most celebrated names that it can claim
are Dollond and Thomas Simpson ; it had no luck in drawing to
its hearth any spark of native genius, or even in forming itself a
centre for understanding the wonderful structure which mathe-
matics had become.
Other times, other modes. We can close on a different note.
We now have as guests in the Society's rooms another London
Mathematical Society, whose members are more able to criticise
astronomers for backward methods and deficient analysis in
mathematics than they are likely to lay themselves open to that
charge.
American Astronomers. One of the features of this decade is the
definite entry of American Observatories into the Society's field of
view. In 1847 the Council writes : " It has often been a matter of
regret, and sometimes a ground for reproach, that the vast country
of the United States has shown so little interest in the science of
astronomy. This apathy, at any rate, exists no longer. Observa-
tories fully equipped have been erected at many places." And
they proceed to instance the equipment of the Naval Observatory,
Washington, and that of Cambridge University, U.S. For the
latter, " an equatoreal instrument, similar in size and mounting to
that of Pulkowa, is now constructing by Merz, of Munich, we pre-
sume at the cost of the state of Massachusetts." But in this surmise
they were wrong ; the 1 5-inch equatoreal of Harvard College
Observatory was provided at the cost of the College and by private
subscriptions. It was erected in 1847 and immediately established
itself under W. C. Bond, running a curious race of rivalry with
1840-50] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 105
Lassell's 24-inch speculum, and discovering Hyperion, Saturn's
8th satellite, simultaneously with him. But the Council says,
*' the most remarkable foundation, and that which does most
credit to the energy of Americans, is the erection of an equatoreal
telescope of 12 inches aperture (by Merz, of Munich) at the thriving
and spirited town of Cincinnati. The funds were obtained by sub-
scription from individual citizens on the solicitation of Mr. O. M.
Mitchel, who has undertaken the charge of the Observatory. . . .
If as much skill be displayed in working the instrument as has
been shown in procuring it, the Observatory of Cincinnati will soon
be celebrated among its compeers."
W. C. Bond was made an Associate in 1849 January, the first
American added to the list, and, as Herschel said, " not long to be
the only one of his countrymen by whom that honour is enjoyed."
Next year the Council announced that they felt it their duty
to increase the list of Associates by the addition of names from
the United States, adding that the very great impulse given to
astronomy in that part of the world within the last few years will
ultimately demand many acknowledgments of the same kind.
The names added were B. Peirce, A. D. Bache, O. M. Mitchel, and
S. C. Walker. Peirce was at the time best known for his celebrated
dilemma, that Neptune, as discovered, was not the planet of
prediction, since its perturbations of Uranus were of a very different
character from those contemplated, and was, moreover, explicitly
excluded because it did not conform to the limits of distance
which Le Verrier had laid down. Bache was Director of the U.S.
Coast Survey, and had communicated their first experiences with
an electro-chronograph. Airy seized the idea at once, " apparently
suggested by the obvious practicability of applying the galvanic
telegraph (so extensively used in America) to the determination
of differences of longitude," and made plans for the chronograph,
governed by a conical pendulum, which has run so long at Green-
wich. He remarks : " The Americans of the United States, although
late in the field of astronomical enterprise, have now taken up that
science with their characteristic energy, and have already shown
their ability to instruct their former masters." Among other
evidences of this energy which are forthcoming in the period under
review are an expedition to Chile for the purpose of observing
Venus and Mars and determining the solar parallax by comparison
with concurrent European observations, and the discovery of a
comet by Miss Maria Mitchel, of Nantucket.
The Cape. The Society was by this time a convenient medium
of exchange for astronomical ideas from all over the world. The
foregoing passages by no means exhaust the references to the
United States. Another source from which interesting news and
106 HISTORY OF THE [1840-50
reports frequently arrived was the Cape, and that from two con-
nections. First, Herschel had only recently returned from his
expedition, in which he had set up his 20 -foot reflector for a
survey of the southern heavens. The strong personal charm
and influence his presence never failed to exert is apparent.
In 1844, Maclear sent an account of the erection of a memorial
obelisk : " Sir John Herschel, during his residence at the Cape, was
President of the South African Literary and Scientific Institution.
When he was about to leave the Colony, the members expressed a
desire to present him with some token of remembrance ; and at a
full meeting a few days before his departure, a gold medal was
presented with the impress of the Institution on one side and a
suitable inscription on the reverse. The feelings excited on that
interesting occasion strongly evinced how much the members
regretted the loss of the President, and their admiration of one
whose talents place him so far above ordinary men, and whose
private life was a pattern of every domestic virtue." Accordingly
an obelisk was erected, on the site of his telescope, and various
memorials were immured below.
Herschel's work at the Cape was, as is well known, independent
of the Cape Observatory. The reports of that Observatory cover
at least three matters of interest. Henderson had returned
from there in 1833. Maclear's confirmation and continuation of
his parallax work has been mentioned elsewhere. Maclear was
himself engaged for most of the period in a very laborious and
punishing geodetical expedition in repetition of Lacaille's meridian
arc. The matter was complicated by questions of local deviations
of the vertical at the two ends, the arc beginning north of the
Cape mountains and ending to the south of the Kamiesberg. At
the latter the country was absolutely wild, unknown even to the
natives, waterless and exposed. The work was courageously
completed, but Maclear's health suffered severely. The third
matter was the publication of the history of the foundation of the
Observatory, and the first observations made by Fearon Fallows
there. Here Airy's energy in reducing old observations came to
aid. He discussed the material which Fallows had accumulated
from 1829 to his death in 1831, and made it available, for what it
was worth.
India. Madras Observatory may also be mentioned as contri-
buting to the flow of news ; here T. G. Taylor was at work until his
death in 1848. Less familiar, and therefore perhaps more welcome,
Trevandrum on the opposite coast. Caldecott was astronomer
to the Maharajah of Travancore. Besides numerous observations of
comets, Caldecott shows the true spirit in his observations of the
solar eclipse of 1843 December. Having ascertained that the
1840-50] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 107
eclipse would be total for a brief space at an accessible point near
Tellicherry, on the coast, he proceeded there with his instruments,
ascended a river to its source and partly surveyed it. He obtained
his observations.
In the case of comets, especially the great comet of 1843,
observations of varied rank and value flowed in by correspondence
from all quarters of the world, and were recorded by the Society.
Foreign Astronomers. Foreign astronomers made hardly less
use of the Society for announcements. Schumacher, in particular,
was indefatigable in sending ephemerides and other news of interest.
And in return, when the troubles of 1848 brought Schumacher's
position at Altona into jeopardy, arising from a rebellion in the
Duchies of Slesvig and Holstein against the King of Denmark,
all the astronomers of Europe used what influence they had to
support him ; the Society sent a deputation to Lord Palmerston,
by whom it was sympathetically received, and the case immedi-
ately represented to the Danish Government.
Instrumental Advances. The interest of the Society in instru-
mental advances was keen, and with few exceptions the lines
approved have stood the test of experience. In 1843, Simms
described his new dividing engine, which was self-acting. Airy
successively described his plans for the new transit circle, the reflex
zenith tube, and the chronograph. He also described with care and
fulness the methods of casting and grinding specula, of Lord Rosse
and of Lassell. Lord Rosse contributes some interesting remarks on
the mounting of a great mirror, which are still to the point. Lassell
was a frequent contributor as well as an indefatigable observer, and
his 24-inch speculum, with its equatoreal mounting, must have
been an unusually fine piece of work, as evidenced by the discovery
of Hyperion, of two of the lost satellites of Uranus, and of the
satellite of Neptune. Some of the subjects talked about seem to
us strangely familiar, though at the time they were mere talk ;
for example, " The advantage of large specula and elevated posi-
tions," by Piazzi Smyth. The Neilgherry Hills was the site he
suggested, that is to say, not so far from the site of Kodaikanal.
Equally assiduous were Fellows in studying improvements in
methods of using the instruments and the minutiae of reading upon
which refinements depend. Sheepshanks was one of the most
expert. The many entries regarding the standard yard offer an
illustration. The Society possessed, and still possesses, a copy of
the national standard. The original was destroyed in the con-
flagration at the Houses of Parliament in 1834, and at the request
of the Government the Society's copy was lent for the purpose of
constructing by comparison a new standard. The work went
on slowly ; all the difficulties of this branch of metrology had to
io8 HISTORY OF THE [1840-50
be found out one by one, composition, support, illumination, per-
sonality ; and the matter passes out of the decade unconcluded.
Glass. The Council in 1846 February, " cannot but mention
what is one of the most remarkable events of the year, though
perhaps no one of the parties concerned in it gave our science a
thought. They allude to the repeal of the excise duty on glass,
which might be called with perfect truth an astronomical window
tax. The regulations up to then rendered experiments for the
improvement of optical glass almost impracticable, and a great deal
too expensive. It may now be confidently hoped that in a few
years our country will not be obliged to admit that we are
surpassed by foreigners in this particular."
The difficulty was very real. Simms was unable to secure the
flint glass to make the Liverpool equatoreal (8-inch), and the whole
was ordered from Merz, of Munich. The same artist had supplied
the 15" O.G. for Cambridge, U.S., and 12" for Cincinnati. Later on,
however, Simms succeeded in making an 8" O.G. (12' 6" focus) for
the new Greenwich transit circle, which satisfied Airy's tests
it separated 77 Coronse (o"-6) but failed at y Coronae (o"'4). The
price was 275 ; where the glass was obtained is not stated. Soon
after he was. able to announce that the difficulty was at an end
(1849 April) " the firm of Chance & Co., of Birmingham, with the
assistance of a foreign artist, have succeeded in manufacturing
flint glass for optical purposes by no means inferior, so far as my
trials enable me to judge, to the very best that was formerly pre-
pared by the elder Guinand." This foreign artist was H. Bon-
temps, whom the troubles in Europe in 1848 had driven from
Choisy-le-Roi, and to whom the younger Guinand had communi-
cated the method that had made his father's, and Fraunhofer's,
and Merz and Mahler's fame, of stirring the melted glass till it
could be stirred no longer, and then chilling the pot somewhat
quickly, by which the melted mass split itself into blocks, each
sensibly homogeneous.
Eclipses. There are numerous eclipse observations within our
period ; mostly they are filled up with the tedium of Baily's Beads,
but there is a notable exception. In 1842 a total eclipse of the sun
took place in North Italy and Austria. Baily and Airy saw it,
the former from Pavia, the latter near Turin. Both sent vivid
accounts ; Airy's in particular is tremendous, and quite outdoes
the reality of most experiences. But what matters is, that both
record and draw the pink " protuberances " then noted for the
first time.
Solar Physics. There was no physics of the sun in this period ;
Schwabe's announcement of the sun-spot period in 1844 in
Astr. Nach. seemingly attracted no one's attention, or at least
1840-50] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 109
belief, and it is curious to find Herschel in 1847, while exhibiting a
month's hourly drawings by Griesbach, recommending, without any
mention of Schwabe, as " highly desirable to secure an unbroken
series of drawings exhibiting a continuous view of the changes in
the sun's surface for every day in every year in future, and as near
an approach to it in past years as can now be recovered. It seems
high time that some attempt of the kind should be made on a
systematic and regular plan, as the only probably effectual means
of arriving at a knowledge of the laws which govern these mysterious
phenomena, and the periods, if any, which they observe in their
formation, and thence of elucidating the nature of the sun itself."
He goes on to recommend the Society to start what might have
been the beginning of a Solar Research Union (November 1847).
But that was for another epoch ; and it is time now that 1840-50
gave place to 1850-60.
CHAPTER IV
THE DECADE 1850-1860. (By E. H. GROVE-HlLLS)
THE period that we now enter upon is a profoundly interesting one,
not only as considered from the view-point of astronomical
progress, but as marking a fundamental change in the aspect and
methods of all the physical sciences. It was indeed in a very real
sense a transition period, when the old problems and the old modes
of attack were either solved or exhausted, and when new questions,
new and powerful instruments of research and new resources were
being rapidly disclosed and developed.
It will be hardly necessary to disclaim any intention of an
attempt to write a history of the progress of astronomy during
these ten years ; such would lie outside our scope, and space would
not permit us to do it justice ; still less shall we venture upon an
outline of the general progress of physical science during the period.
It does, however, seem desirable, and in fact necessary, that before
we enter upon our real theme, the history of the Royal Astronomical
Society, we should pause for a few moments and try to picture to
ourselves what actually was passing in the minds of scientific men
at that middle of the nineteenth century ; that we should try, in
a word, to catch the spirit of the time.
Looking back from the vantage-point given us by the passage
of seventy years, and standing therefore on an elevation which
enables the veriest pigmy of to-day to overlook the head of the
tallest giant aforetime, it is not difficult to seize this spirit and to
see that this mid-century did in fact coincide with the epoch of a
far-reaching change in scientific thought. This change was not,
in the main, a change in the ideals or objects of scientific research ;
it was shown rather in the direction of a fruitful development of
new methods, often opening up entirely fresh vistas and giving
access to territories before considered quite inaccessible. The de-
velopment of spectrum analysis and its application to the heavenly
bodies will sufficiently illustrate this point. In general physics,
electricity and magnetism, light, thermodynamics, and the laws of
energy and its transformations, this decade marked the end of the
old experimental school and the rise of the new school of mathe-
IIO
1850-60] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY in
matical physicists. In the early years of the period Faraday was
still pouring out the Experimental Researches in Electricity papers,
which for clearness and charm of style, acuteness of insight,fand
fertility in experiment will always remain classics, and should be
read by every young scientific aspirant whatever branch of science
he intends to follow. The Philosophical Transactions for 1851
contain no less than four of these memoirs out of a total of twelve
papers. The last number appeared in the volume for 1856, and in
the next year his Bakerian Lecture, Experimental Relation of Gold
and other Metals to Light, was the last of his great memoirs. He was
then sixty-six, and the remaining ten years of his life were naturally
a period of diminishing activity.
Thus ended the stage in which the physicist was compelled to
rely mainly upon experiment, and in the next stage experiment
tended to become the vehicle of verification rather than of investiga-
tion. At the same time, when Faraday was approaching the end
of his labours, William Thomson, then a young man under thirty
but with already a continental reputation, was engaged in laying the
foundations of thermodynamics and in resolutely clearing away
the last difficulties that stood in the way of the full acceptance of
the principle of the conservation of energy. Joule's great memoir,
On the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat, had been read to the Royal
Society in 1849 June, and there only remained to explain the
apparent paradox that while a definite amount of heat was exactly
equivalent to a definite amount of work, even a perfect engine
could, as shown by Carnot's reasoning, only develop a fraction of
the total. What, then, became of the energy apparently lost, and,
if lost, where was the conservation of energy ? The solution
was soon apparent to Thomson's acute mind, who saw that it lay
in the distinction between the total energy of any system and the
available energy, and with this solution the foundation-stone of
thermodynamics was laid and the basis of all modern development
of energy production firmly fixed. We may therefore fairly claim
that in the year 1851 the two fundamental principles of physical
science, principles which neither rearrangements of time and space,
nor new conceptions of matter and force have yet shaken, the con-
servation of energy and the second law of thermodynamics, were
defined in terms which would stand to-day and were finally accepted
in their present form. Just about this time another young man
of the same school, James Clerk Maxwell, had taken his degree,
and thinking of embarking on the study of electricity, was asking
advice as to what books on the subject he should read, trying his
hand in the meantime on a very difficult problem of astronomical
dynamics, the constitution and stability of Saturn's rings. While
in another direction G. G. Stokes was cutting out new paths in the
H2 HISTORY OF THE [1850-60
theory of light and taking the place that he held so long of being
the ultimate court of appeal on subjects that were sufficiently
difficult to baffle all other enquirers. Just by way of a date point,
we may note that the Change of Refrangibility of Light was read
to the Royal Society in two parts, 1852 May and 1853 June
respectively.
Turning to astronomy, we find that a change no less fundamental
was coming, and though we should, perhaps, not be justified in
claiming for the decade under review its actual arrival, we may
confidently assert that, looking back now on these ten years, we see
in them a period of great development, containing promise of
changes even more profound. Anyhow, it is clear that the outlook
and aspirations of the astronomer of 1860 were of a different nature
from those of his predecessor of 1850. With the invention of
photography and the discovery of spectrum analysis, the
astronomer's powers were multiplied and the whole scope and
possibilities of his science enormously enlarged. Up to 1850 the
only photographic process known was the daguerreotype, a method
producing pictures of exquisite fineness of detail but demanding
high technical skill, and moreover requiring exposures of such length
that it was useless as an accessory to the telescope except for the
sun. The first recorded astronomical photograph is one of the total
solar eclipse of 1851 July 28, for which see volume 41 of the Memoirs,
Royal Astronomical Society. It shows the corona extending from
the limb for about one-fifth of the diameter of the moon. In 1850
the collodion wet plate was invented, and a photographic method
with a not too difficult technique and requiring exposures of about
one-thirtieth of those previously necessary was thus placed in the
hands of experimenters. Sir David Brewster, in his Presidential
address to the Edinburgh meeting of the British Association held
in that year, devoted a large part of his time to the subject of
astronomy, and said, " Though but slightly connected with astro-
nomy, I cannot omit calling your attention to the great improve-
ments, I may call them discoveries, which have been recently
made in photography." This view, that the connection between
astronomy and photography was slight, was, however, not shared
by others, who saw in the new science a most promising addition
to the astronomer's tools, and lost no time in attempting to bring
it into service.
An early and successful experimenter was Warren de la Rue,
an esteemed Fellow of the Society who obtained the Gold Medal
in 1862 and became President in 1864. He devoted himself with
great energy and at considerable outlay to the construction of a new
telescope specially designed for this work, and secured numberless
very beautiful photographs of the moon, also some of stars and
1850-60] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 113
planets. Another successful exponent of the new art was Mr.
Hartnup, of the Liverpool Observatory, who in 1854 obtained
pictures of the moon said " to have outstripped all other attempts
made elsewhere." He himself was disappointed with his results,
a disappointment not unnatural when we realise that his confidence
in the sharpness of image and minuteness of detail in his negatives
led him to demand that they should stand enlargement from 1-3
inches to 50 feet, equivalent to 460 diameters. A modern dry
plate at such an enlargement would show little more than the grain
of the silver deposit, and it is no small tribute to the excellence of
these early wet plates that any picture at all remained.
In 1854 it was decided by the Royal Society that a photo-
heliograph should be established at Kew for the purpose of making
a daily record of the state of the solar surface. De la Rue undertook
the supervision of the design and erection of the instrument, and
it was put into permanent use in 1858 March, remaining at Kew
until its transfer to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in 1872.
In that same year (1858) the whole astronomical world was
thrilled by the appearance of a great comet (Donati's), which for
many weeks presented a spectacle of extraordinary beauty and
interest. Attempts were made to photograph it, but there was
then no instrument provided with the guiding accessories necessary
for keeping the image fixed on the plate during a prolonged exposure.
De la Rue could obtain nothing in sixty seconds, and the only
recorded photograph is one taken by Mr. Usherwood on Walton
Common with a stationary camera furnished with a portrait lens
of short focus. We can only regret that no possessor of an
equatoreal thought of the device of strapping such a camera on to
his telescope, which would have given with a short exposure a
record of this unique celestial object. We must content ourselves
with noting the fact that Mr. Usherwood's was the first photograph
taken of a comet.
It would not be right to leave this subject of photography
without some allusion, however brief, to the work which was being
done at the other side of the Atlantic. Two names are prominent,
G. P. Bond at Harvard (1851) and L. M. Rutherfurd from 1864.
In both cases their main object was the same, to develop photo-
graphy as a method of precision for the delineation and recording
of star positions ; to what splendid development this has attained at
Harvard is well known to all and need not be described here.
Concurrently with this advance in celestial photography, a
great improvement was made in the reflecting telescope by the
substitution of the silver-on-glass for the speculum metal mirror.
The previous decade had seen the completion of Lord Rosse's
6-foot telescope and its application to the resolution of nebulae, a
8
H4 HISTORY OF THE [1850-60
task in which it proved so efficient that it tended to mislead
astronomers into the incautious assumption that, because many
nebulae hitherto supposed irresolvable, were supposed to be seen
in the field of this powerful instrument separated into their com-
ponent stars, given sufficient magnification all nebulae would thus
prove to be distant clusters. Lord Rosse was awarded one of the
Royal Medals by the Royal Society in 1851, but he never received
our Gold Medal, a somewhat curious omission which it is difficult
to justify, though the explanation is presumably to be found in the
fact that he was pre-eminent not primarily as an observer but
rather as an engineer, who developed to a high level of perfection
the art of casting, grinding, figuring, and polishing large metal
specula and in mounting them for practical observing.
Another name which will always be associated with the early
use of large reflecting telescopes is that of William Lassell, who had
been awarded the Gold Medal in 1849 an d served in the office of
President in 1870-72. Lassell was both a constructor and a skilful
observer, and not satisfied with our murky skies, he transported
his instrument, a reflector of 2-feet aperture and 2O-feet focal
length, to Malta in 1852, and observed with it there for some time,
replacing it later with an instrument of double the aperture, which
he used at Malta in 1862-65. The invention of the silver-on-glass
reflector threw the metal mirror out of commission, and a few years
ago it might have quite confidently been maintained that no large
metal speculum would ever again be undertaken. Lately, when
we have seen the almost insuperable difficulties of casting very
large glass discs (witness the case of the Mount Wilson zoo-inch,
where it took years before a suitable one could be obtained), it is
not quite so certain that we or our descendants may not see a
reversion to metal. The casting of a metal disc of any desired size
presents no insurmountable engineering problems.
The last year of our decade saw the most momentous and far-
reaching enlargement of the boundaries of astronomy : the applica-
tion by Bunsen and Kirchhoff of the principle of spectrum analysis
(found by Stokes in 1853) to the determination of the constituents
of the solar atmosphere. Kirchhoff 's first paper on this subject was
read before the Berlin Academy on 1859 December 15. His full
memoir did not appear till eighteen months later, and the early
astronomical applications of the new research thus lie within the
next decade. We may, however, just note that this announcement,
so important to us and marking off so clearly in our estimation the
opening of a new epoch, does not seem to have excited very much
attention among astronomers at the time. The Astronomer Royal
in his suggestions for the observation of the solar eclipse of July
1860, did not allude to the possibility of work of this nature ; nor
1850-60] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 115
does the word spectrum appear in the index to the Monthly Notices
until 1863, when Airy, at the March meeting, described a spectro-
scope used at Greenwich on fixed stars. The number for 1856 May
had, however, contained a short " Description of an Observatory
erected at Upper Tulse Hill," by William Huggins, who was then
devoting himself to the study of astronomy with the intention of
making it his life work. How quickly he seized the splendid
promise of Kirchhoff's work, and to what fruitful use he put it,
is familiar to all, but, in any case, falls outside our period and
cannot be told here.
The year 1850 found astronomers still greatly interested in the
discovery of new minor planets ; ten of these bodies were then
known, and their number was being added to yearly. In 1853
February, twenty-three were known, and by 1860 January, the
total had risen to fifty-seven. While the number known was small,
it was confidently expected that the end would soon be reached
and the whole group named and accounted for. Thus we find the
Report of the Council for the year ending 1851 February, after
recording the discovery of three more, said : "A rate of increase
among the known members of the solar system which can hardly
be expected to continue very long." When, however, it began to
be suspected that the rate of discovery was a function of the in-
crease of telescopic power, that greater efficiency and higher
magnification simply meant that the existence of smaller and
smaller planets was disclosed and that their total number was, for
all practical purposes, infinite, the interest of the search waned.
Now the only justification that remains for continuing this search
is the possibility of finding one with an exceptional orbit, such as
was the case with Eros, where the fact that its orbit at times comes
inside that of Mars makes it the most accurate gauge for the
measurement of the solar parallax.
In one particular direction the Astronomical Society found the
rapid multiplication of these bodies a decided embarrassment.
Their ephemerides had always been published in the Monthly
Notices, but the bulk of this matter became too great, and in 1854
February the Editor reported that, as communications of this
nature could be published with greater regularity as well as earlier
and more fully in the Astronomische N achrichten, they would
disappear from the Monthly Notices.
The two most active observers and discoverers of these little
bodies at this time were J. R. Hind, and A. de Gasparis of Naples.
Both received the Gold Medal, Gasparis in 1851 and Hind in 1853.
The President in the first-named year was Airy, and in his address
he set forth the three known ways of detection, viz., accident,
physical properties, e.g. recognition of the planet by its disc, and
n6 HISTORY OF THE [1850-60
careful comparison with star charts, and he lamented that this
country possessed no charts at all comparable with the Berlin
series, a defect so markedly brought to light in the history of the
discovery of Neptune. Hind worked at the observatory established
by George Bishop, who was for many years Treasurer of the
Society, in the grounds of his house, South Villa, Regent's Park,
on the site now occupied by Bedford College. He at first used the
Berlin charts, but finding that they were deficient of the fainter
stars, nothing below the tenth magnitude being shown, and that they
did not include the whole of the region about the ecliptic, he set
himself to make another set of charts containing all stars down
to the eleventh magnitude within 3 of the ecliptic, and with the
aid of these was able to make further discoveries. This total was
ten planets, eight up to the time when he received the Medal, and
two shortly afterwards ; but as he was then appointed Superin-
tendent of the Nautical Almanac, he was compelled to discontinue
active observing work. With the exception of three found by
Pogson at Oxford during 1856 and 1857, no further minor planets
can be credited to any observer in this country.
In other directions there was great activity in these years in the
construction of star charts and catalogues : 1850 was the epoch
of the British Association Catalogue, due to the indefatigable
labours of our energetic Fellow, Francis Baily, which recorded
every star down to the sixth magnitude of which reliable observa-
tions could be found ; 1855 must always remain a memorable date
to astronomers, as being the epoch of the Bonn Durchmusterung,
generally called the B.D., which far excelled all previous star atlases.
Originally carried out by Argelander from the N. Pole to 2 beyond
the Equator, and continued by his successor Schonfeld down to
23 south of the Equator, it showed every star down to magnitude
gj, and was for many years, in fact until, to some extent, super-
seded by modern photographic charts, invaluable for comet search-
ing and similar tasks. The intensive scrutiny for minor planets
on the Continent gave rise to the production of beautiful ecliptic
charts by Chacornac and the brothers Henry.
There was one astronomical advance of prime importance made
about this time, to which it is not easy to fix a precise date,
Schwabe's proof of the periodicity of sun-spots. He, it is true,
announced in 1844 that he had got indications of a ten-year period,
but the announcement excited no attention and apparently met
with little belief. In 1850, Humboldt, in the third volume of his
Kosmos, gave a table of the sun-spot statistics as observed by
Schwabe from 1826 to date, in which the periodicity was so evident
that it could not be overlooked. Schwabe was awarded the Gold
Medal in 1857, the President being M. J. Johnson, the Radcliffe
1850-60] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 117
Observer, who in an excellent address paid full tribute to the
medallist's unexampled perseverance and industry. In 1852,
R. Wolf announced a corrected period of ii-n years, and in the
same year the connection between sun-spots and the magnetic
elements on the earth was shown independently by three men :
Gen. Sabine in England, Wolf at Berne, and A. Gautier at Geneva.
We must also claim for this decade the actual completion and
publication of a gigantic work, not perhaps strictly astronomical,
but with an intimate connection with astronomy, the Principal
Triangulation of the United Kingdom. The scientific direction and
control of the calculations were in the hands of A. R. Clarke, who
was elected a Fellow on 1850 March 8, and continued in the Society
until his death a few years ago. He was never awarded the Gold
Medal, an omission which some of the geodesists in the Society
regret, but they admit at the same time that there is no instance
of an award for geodetic work pure and simple. Clarke's Geodesy
still remains the best English book on the science, though the great
activity on the Continent in recent years has produced publications
which now leave it, in certain directions, somewhat out of date.
In 1852 there occurred the death of one of the founders of
the Ordnance Survey, Thomas Colby, who was concerned with the
triangulation of England from its beginning in the early years of the
century and took a leading part in it up to the year 1847. His
obituary notice covers nearly fourteen pages of the Report of the
Council to the Annual Meeting on 1853 February 1 1 . Among many
other activities, he was the designer of the compensation bars used
in the measurement of the Salisbury Plain and other bases.
The publication and discussion of these geodetic results drew
renewed attention to an old problem, the determination of the
mean density of the earth. Three methods were available for its
solution. Firstly, the comparison of the earth's attraction with the
horizontal attraction exercised by a mountain mass. This method
had been used by the Ordnance Survey, and an account of it was
presented by Col. James, the Director-General, to the Royal Society
in 1856 February. A second possible method was a comparison
of the attraction at the surface with that found at a definite dis-
tance below the surface. This was tried by the Astronomer Royal
at Harton Colliery in 1854, with every precaution that his skill
and experience could suggest. The actual result was disappointing,
the value found, 6-566, being now known to be very considerably
in excess of the truth. The third method, and the only one of
these three which would now be reckoned of any value, is the
Cavendish experiment, wherein the earth's attraction is directly
compared, by means of a torsion balance, which can be made
of almost any required degree of sensitiveness, with the attraction
n8 HISTORY OF THE [1850-60
of a small mass of metal of known weight and density. This ex-
periment had been repeated by Francis Baily, who had obtained a
value of 5*67 ; while the Ordnance Survey, by observing the de-
flection of the plumb line at Arthur's Seat, got 5*316. Cornu and
Bailie found by the torsion balance 5-56 ; while Boys, in his skilful
and laborious repetition of the same experiment (1895), using
quartz fibres and every possible refinement, got 5*527.
On 1855 August 7 there died one of the most loved and respected
Fellows of the Society, the Rev. R. Sheepshanks, of whom the
Astronomer Royal said, " a man whose equal in talent and persever-
ance, in disinterestedness, in love of justice and truth I have scarcely
known." He died as the direct result of overwork on a laborious
task on which he had been engaged for more than eleven years,
the construction of the new standard yard, involving tens
of thousands of measurements and comparisons with standards
of different lengths, different materials and varying methods of
marking the fiduciary points. This work had been determined upon
by a Royal Commission in 1843 and had then been entrusted to
Baily. He, however, died in 1844, and Sheepshanks took it up and
gave unremitting attention to it till his death.
Sheepshanks had an extraordinarily skilful eye with the
micrometer, and it was stated that his comparisons were " so far
superior to those of all preceding experimenters, including Kater
and Baily, as to defy all competition on the ground of accuracy."
He left the work so far completed that no further measurements
were required, and it was subsequently put in form and published
by Airy. He was a generous benefactor to the Society and to the
University of Cambridge. Eighteen months after his death his
sister, carrying out his wishes, though these were not actually
embodied in his will, presented all his astronomical and other
scientific instruments, now forming forty-three items in the list
of instruments in our possession. With all his energy and capacity
he was a very modest man, and always refused to be nominated
for the office of President, though it was an office for which he was
pre-eminently fitted and to which he would have received the
warmest welcome both from the Council and from the Fellows.
The acceptance of it was, in fact, often pressed upon him.
The capture and occupation of Lucknow brought to the notice
of astronomers the history and ultimate fate of one of the most
short-lived observatories ever established, the one founded by the
King of Oude in 1841 and abolished by him, when the new toy had
ceased to amuse, in 1848. The observatory was well equipped and
furnished with instruments of the first order by Troughton and
Simms. A Fellow of the Society, Lt.-Col. Wilcox, had been
appointed Director, and the new institution began work under the
THE REV. RICHARD SHEEPSHANKS
(1794-1855)
To face p. 118.]
1850-60] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 119
happiest auspices ; the Director was himself an energetic observer.
The native subordinates were easily trained and most trustworthy,
as indeed the experience of the Indian Survey Department had
consistently proved ; the climate was good, and there was no other
observatory at the same low latitude so well furnished with in-
struments of power and precision. When, however, the King
discovered that it was not enough to build and equip an observatory
and pay an observer, but that it was also necessary to publish the
results and that this publication called for an annually recurring
expenditure, his interest rapidly waned, and he finally, in 1848,
discharged the Director and placed the papers and instruments
in the charge of a native officer who knew neither English nor
astronomy. After the Mutiny, when the city was entered by the
British forces, there happened to be one Fellow of the Society
present with the troops, Lieut. J. F. Tennant, then a young officer
on the Survey, who ultimately rose to high rank and was President
in 1890-92. He was at special pains to ascertain what had happened
to the observatory, and it appeared that while the structure was
more or less intact, all the instruments, in fact everything of metal,
had been removed, and that it was beyond hope that anything in
the shape of an instrument could be recovered. The records had
long since been eaten by white ants. Thus perished the Lucknow
Observatory.
Allusion has already been made in connection with the subject
of astronomical photography to the solar eclipse of 1851 July 28.
This eclipse was visible in Scandinavia at many easily accessible
points, and a very large number of Fellows took advantage of the
opportunity. It may fairly be said to have been the first eclipse
of which extensive co-ordinated observations were attempted.
The observations were necessarily confined to drawings of the
corona and prominences, times of contacts, and notes of the effect
upon men, animals, and birds. The Astronomer Royal was at
Gottenborg in Sweden, and among others were Hind ; Dawes, a
most industrious and painstaking observer, joint re-discoverer with
Bond of Saturn's dusky or crape ring ; Carrington, then in charge
of the University Observatory at Durham, subsequently to be
famous for his long-continued series of observations of sun-spots,
leading him to the discovery of their drift, or variation in apparent
rotation period with the solar latitude ; Piazzi Smyth, the brilliant
Astronomer Royal for Scotland; Lassell; and Dunkin of Greenwich.
The eclipse was a fine one, with a remarkable hook-shaped pro-
minence and a bright corona visible to a distance from the limb equal
to about half the moon's diameter. The usual effects upon the
animal world were noted, and the behaviour of the human spectators
varied from an old lady who lit a candle to continue her work, to
120 HISTORY OF THE [1850-60
fishermen who showed great terror, and to the inhabitants of one
village who donned their best clothes in honour of the event.
The name of Piazzi Smyth will recall an enterprise which he
undertook shortly after : the transport of a telescope to the Peak of
Teneriffe, and the conduct of regular observations there for many
months in order to ascertain exactly what the astronomer stood to
gain by elevating himself some thousands of feet. It was not for
many years after this that a permanent mountain observatory was
established ; but Piazzi Smyth's expedition, described as it was with
all the picturesque wealth of language of which he was so well
capable, must always remain memorable as the first real attempt
of an astronomer to free himself from the restrictions imposed by
the opacity or turbidity of our atmosphere. On the other hand,
the fact, already noted, that Hind, observing in London, discovered
no less than ten new minor planets would seem to indicate that even
our foggy skies are not quite so antagonistic as might have been
supposed to observations of the utmost delicacy.
This summary, necessarily very short, and indeed almost frag-
mentary, will give some indication of the major astronomical
activities of the time, especially those with which our Fellows were
concerned, for, as has doubtless been fully appreciated by the reader,
we have paid little attention to work done or discoveries made
abroad. The time was clearly one of great progress, while, as
already insisted upon, it was essentially a time of transition,
leading from the old astronomy of observation, the construction of
star charts and catalogues, the detection of minor and the close
scrutiny of the surfaces of the major planets, to physical astronomy
in its new meaning inaugurated in the next decade. The general
interest in astronomy, both among scientific men engaged in
other lines of work and among the educated public, was very
great, possibly much greater than it is at the present time. A
good gauge of this is the content of the Presidential addresses
delivered at the opening of the annual meetings of the British
Association. In 1850, Sir D. Brewster was President, and devoted
a large part of his address to our subject. He naturally dealt
with the revelations of Lord Rosse's telescope, and alluded to the
recent discoveries by Lassell of the satellite of Neptune and the
eighth satellite of Saturn ; also to the eleven then known minor
planets. The next year he was replaced by Airy, who, of course,
devoted his whole address to his own beloved science. He claimed
that the progress of astronomy in the past year had been very
great, and among a multitude of other points dealt with the new
Foucault pendulum experiment. The Belfast meeting of 1852
found Sabine President, the discoverer of the correlation between
sun-spot periodicity and magnetic elements ; and in the next year
1850-60] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 121
the foundation of the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac,
the first year of issue being for 1855, was welcomed.
At Liverpool in 1854 tne Earl of Harrowby obtained assistance
for the astronomical section of the address, evidently considered a
necessary part of it, and included a report prepared by Challis on
the present state of the science. Again in 1857 at Dublin the Rev.
Humphrey Lloyd began with astronomy, and gave a competent
summary of recent progress.
One literary event during our decade must not pass unnoticed,
the publication of Grant's History of Physical Astronomy. For
this work the author received the Gold Medal in 1856, an honour
never before accorded for literary service. The book is well
known to all astronomers and will long continue to be read.
The internal or domestic history of the Society during these ten
years was one of quiet activity and progress, and was marked by
none of those clashes of personalities which, while often unpleasant
to contemporary spectators, furnish the memorialist with his most
telling paragraphs. The annual meeting of 1850 February elected
Airy as President for his fourth year. The Treasurer was Bishop,
the secretaries A. De Morgan, a most devoted friend of the Society,
who served in that office for sixteen years (1831-39 and 1847-55),
and Capt. Manners ; the Foreign Secretary, Hind ; and among the
Council were Adams, James Glaisher, the famous meteorologist
and balloonist, and John Lee, a generous benefactor of the Society.
Among the Vice-Presidents were Main, who subsequently became
Radcliffe Observer, and Sheepshanks. The next year Adams re-
placed Airy, the other officers and members of Council remaining
for the most part unchanged.
In this year the Council were much alarmed at a proposal of the
Government to erect offices for the scientific societies on ground held
by the Commissioners of the 1851 exhibition at Kensington Gore.
They were unanimous in denouncing this scheme, and expressed
themselves as more than satisfied with the rooms they had occupied
in Somerset House for eighteen years. They maintained that the
removal of the Society to a " distant suburb " would compel the
resignation of many of the working Fellows, and they said that if
the scheme were proceeded with they would have to petition Her
Majesty for leave to remain in their present apartments ; should
this not be granted, they would prefer to hire their own quarters
rather than exile themselves. The Royal Society Council was
equally unanimous in rejecting the Government project, and nothing
more was heard of it. In 1854 the question of removal again came
up, when the rebuilding of Burlington House as a home for the
Royal Academy and for all the leading scientific societies became a
practical possibility. The Society was, however, quite comfortable
122 HISTORY OF THE [1850-60
at Somerset House, and the Council at first " unanimously de-
precated " any removal ; if, however, removal was insisted upon,
they formulated certain conditions. It must be remembered that
the original Government scheme for Burlington House would have
given accommodation of a different character from that now pro-
vided. The intention was to give all the societies offices of sufficient
size for their routine clerical work and rooms for Councils or Com-
mittees to meet, while the rooms for scientific or general meetings
were to be common to all the societies, and used by each in turn
in accord with a mutually arranged calendar. The libraries of
all the societies were also to be amalgamated into one, to which all
Fellows and Members would have access. In many ways the
original proposal was a thoroughly businesslike and practical one,
and would have resulted in great saving of space, while the effective
accommodation for each science would have been quite as ample as
at present. The individuality of the various societies was, however,
too strong, the measure of co-operation proposed proved impossible,
and the plan was ultimately abandoned. Several of the societies,
our own included, were prepared to accept a common meeting-
room, but they could not reconcile themselves to a common library.
The other conditions laid down by the Council were that they
should have not less space than they had at Somerset House, that
quarters should be provided for a resident Assistant Secretary, and
that they should be put to no expense. At the same time, the
officers were not anticipating an early move. In 1854 July, De
Morgan wrote to Admiral Smyth on this subject : " All is going on
well as to the Government proceedings. We shall not be stirred
these ten years, I augur. You know the story of the birds in the
nest listening to the farmer plotting how to cut the corn. Now
Government is a man who cannot work for himself. He works
through people who report. Deep calleth unto deep that is, one
office reports to another, and the other refers back, and then they
consider, and red tape becomes grey before they have settled how
to proceed. And if you give them six months' start and set a snail
at them, the snail beats them by a thousand lengths ; and then
there is a change of Ministry and a new report to ' my lords,'
and ' my lords ' make a minute, which means in time a year, and
so ad infinitum."
De Morgan over-estimated the speed of a Government Depart-
ment ; it was twenty years before the shift of quarters was accom-
plished.
In 1853, Airy again took the Presidential chair, and among new
members of Council were De la Rue, then just beginning his work
in astronomical photography, and Grant, whose History has already
been mentioned. The two years of Airy's Presidentship were in
50-60] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 123
the main uneventful. The Medal in 1854 was awarded to Charles
Rtimker for his astronomical observations in general, and for his
Catalogue of twelve thousand stars in particular. In 1855 it was
given to Dawes for his long-continued devotion to astronomy, his
numerous contributions to the science and the excellence of his
observations. The Presidential address on that occasion was a
model of terseness and brevity and filled barely two pages of the
Monthly Notices. All the addresses of this period were in fact much
shorter than we have been accustomed to recently, and though it is
doubtless often of great value to have a reasoned review of a man's
work put before us, and such review, if it is to be complete, cannot
be very short, it is nevertheless possible that the present generation
might learn something of the art of condensation by studying the
models set by their great predecessors.
In 1855 the choice of the Council fell upon M. J. Johnson, the
Radcliffe observer, and De Morgan yielded the secretaryship, which
he had held so long, to De la Rue. Carrington from Durham, and
W. Simms, of the famous firm of Troughton and Simms, took their
seats at the Council table. In 1856 January the Council, which had
become somewhat uneasy at the large number of Associates elected,
appointed a Committee to consider the question and recommend
whether any limitation should be imposed. In July the Committee
made a long and careful report. It appeared that the number
had risen from about 21, at which it stood in the early years of the
Society's existence, to 56. The names were carefully scrutinised
and it was found that no one had been appointed who did not reflect
honour upon the Society and that, in general, the selection could
not have been better done. The Committee, however, thought
it would be desirable in future to have an understanding, not
explicitly embodied in a Bye-law, that the number should be
restricted to about 50. This was accepted by the Council and has
remained a working principle since that date. Even with the
enlarged astronomical developments of the present times the number
appears to be sufficient to include everyone of real distinction, and
it would be hard to find any instance of a foreign astronomer of
high merit who has not been included in the list.
It may be noted that the original idea of the qualifications and
functions of an Associate differed in one important particular from
our present conceptions. Now we look upon the election as an
honour to a foreign astronomer, accorded him upon the sole basis
of his services to astronomy. In the early years of the Society,
and still persisting in 1856, it was held that an Associate should be
recommended for election not only in recognition of his past
achievements but also in hopes of his future services, and great
stress was laid on the importance of selecting such men as could
I2 4 HISTORY OF THE [1850-60
* 4 usefully co-operate with the Society and assist it in carrying out
schemes requiring organisation and division of labour." This
consideration somewhat modified the type of man recommended.
Thus while the Committee were of opinion that the list should
contain " Directors of foreign observatories of deserved reputation
and of such foreign Professors of Astronomy as have conspicuously
added to the science by theoretical investigations," they were
very chary in admitting any claims on the part of those who did
not hold official positions. Such were considered as having little
or no value for these co-ordinated researches. The amateur
astronomer the Committee would have entirely excluded, and they
specifically recommended " that, though subordinate foreign
astronomers may occasionally in cases of extraordinary merit be
usefully put on the list of members, yet that want of an independent
position must be considered per se as a disqualification only to be
set aside by some remarkable discovery or some elaborate astro-
nomical work of acknowledged merit." Note particularly the
word " usefully " as indicating the bias of the Committee.
The hope that Associates could be made use of never appears to
have been practically acted upon, and has long since been aban-
doned. In fact, it is now recognised that the Society is not a
suitable body for carrying out schemes requiring organisation and
division of labour.
The Council of those times was troubled with one task lying
somewhat outside their normal functions, the exercise of a piece of
ecclesiastical patronage arising out of the gift to the Society by
John Lee of the advowsons of the livings of Hartwell and Stone.
Thus we find in 1855 the Council had to present a new incumbent
to the living of Hartwell-cum-Hampden-Parva, and again in 1859
had to fill a similar vacancy at Stone. In the first case there were
six applicants, and the selection was made easier by the fact that
the duty had for some years been performed by a clergyman
residing in the place. The gentleman, the Rev. C. Lowndes, was
himself an amateur astronomer and had, aided by the generosity of
Mr. Lee, built himself a small observatory in the Rectory grounds.
The Council were therefore in the fortunate position of being able
to satisfy both doctrinal and scientific needs, to appoint a Rector
who was already well known and respected in the locality, and to
help towards the continuation of work in the observatory. On
other occasions there was no such clean-cut issue before them, and
in filling up the living of Stone they were apparently guided only
by testimonials. Ultimately, these two advowsons were repur-
chased from the Society by Mr. Lee's heir in 1879, and the Council
was relieved of a distasteful duty for which it had no qualifications.
Towards the end of 1856 another matter of procedure was re-
1850-60] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 125
modelled, the method of voting for the award of the Gold Medal
was modified and the present system established. Up to that date
the practice had been to receive nominations or proposals at the
November meeting, to take no action in December and to select the
recipient, from among those proposed, in January. The Council
meeting of January therefore had all the nominations before it,
and was directed by the Bye-law to " decide to which of the persons
so proposed the Medal shall be given at the ensuing Annual General
Meeting." No explicit power was placed in the hands of the Council
to vote that a Medal should not be awarded in any given year,
but as the award required a three-fourth majority it would obviously
occasionally occur that the candidate obtaining the suffrage of the
majority could not satisfy three-fourths of the Council, and no
election would be made. Up to 1850 no Medal had been awarded
on six occasions. This procedure was found to have certain
admitted difficulties, and it was decided to change it by adoption
of the principle of dividing the election into two steps ; a selection
from among the candidates in December and the election of the
selected candidate in January by a three-fourths majority. It
should be particularly noted that the question on which they are
asked to vote in December is different from that on which the
January vote is taken. In December the vote taken is as to the
relative merits of the candidates ; in January, as to absolute
merit, i.e. whether the astronomical work of the selected candidate
is up to the standard set for the Medal. The January voting is not,
as has sometimes been assumed, a confirmation of the previous
selection, but in the words of the Bye-law is a vote " whether the
nominee then before the Council shall or shall not receive the Gold
Medal," i.e. is his work of such merit as to deserve unquestionably
this high honour ? There is therefore no inconsistency in a member
of Council who votes for a particular candidate in December and
against him in January ; he is merely expressing his view that
while the nominee is the best of those proposed, he is not quite of
sufficient distinction for the award.
This principle was clearly laid down by the Committee of 1856,
and the Bye-laws were then redrafted in the form which, with one
minor amendment, now stands. In 1857, Bishop was elected as
President, and S. C. Whitbread took his place as Treasurer. Whit-
bread was known rather as a meteorologist than an astronomer,
having been one of three original founders of the Meteorological
Society, with Lee and James Glaisher, in 1850. He was a most
efficient Treasurer, and held the office for twenty-one years. He
was an absolute terror to defaulters in arrear with their contribu-
tions, and used to visit them personally and ask them to explain
their conduct before he recommended the Council to expel them.
126 HISTORY OF THE [1850-60
In fact, the whole process of removing a Fellow's name from the
list on account of failure to pay his dues was then a much more
formidable affair than at present. Failing to get any satisfaction
at a personal visit, the Treasurer was obliged to recommend
expulsion, a ceremony carried out with the utmost publicity at a
Special General Meeting called for the express purpose. Nowadays
the Council is more charitable, and recognising that a failure to
pay may be due more to misfortune than to malice, allows the
name to disappear quietly from the roll without publicity.
The remaining years of our decade call for little notice. Bishop
served the usual two years as President without ever once taking
the chair owing to ill-health, and was replaced in 1859 ^Y the
Rev. Robert Main, who in the following year succeeded Johnson as
Radcliffe Observer. Among new members of Council we may note
A. Cayley, the famous algebraist, and A. R. Clarke, the geodesist.
Admiral Smyth, the author of A Cycle of Celestial Objects, returned
once more to the Council which he had served so well in previous
years.
During the whole period the two publications of the Society,
the Memoirs and the Monthly Notices, grew in size and importance,
and may justly be said to have contained almost everything of
any permanent value in astronomy that was published in Great
Britain. An old dispute, even in recent years not quite dead, as
to the relative position as regards publications of scientific papers
between the Royal Society on the one hand and the specialised
Societies on the other, arose somewhat acutely at this time.
The story of Sir Joseph Banks and his jealousy at the founding of
the Astronomical and other societies has already been told in an
earlier section of this history. Long after his time it was, however,
still held by many claimants on behalf of the premier society that
they had an absolute right to the publication of all scientific
memoirs of the first order of importance, and that the others could
only claim either work of second-rate merit or, if they cared to do
so, might produce abstracts of work already issued by the Royal
Society. It need hardly be pointed out that no question of claim
or right arises. Anybody is entitled to send his papers to any
Society of which he is a Fellow, failing that, he must get a Fellow
to present it on his behalf, and the choice as to which Society he
selects rests exclusively with him. It has never been seriously
proposed, though we do not doubt that many of the out-and-out
upholders of the extreme claims of the Royal Society would have
supported it, that the Council of a Society such as the Astronomical
should, if they judge a paper to be of sufficient merit, pass it on
to the Royal Society for publication. No upper limit has ever
been set, or could conceivably ever have been set, to the quality
i8<>o-
50-60] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 127
of our Memoirs. In default of this it is not easy to see how the
Royal Society could hope to enforce a claim to receive the best.
Such claim was, however, definitely made, and made, moreover, by
one who was both an astronomer and an ex-President of the Royal
Society. In 1855, Lord Rosse presented a confidential memorandum
to the Council on the expediency of enlarging their number. He
said, " In a Council so small it is impossible to secure representation
of the leading scientific societies, and it is scarcely to be expected
that under such circumstances they will continue to publish
inferior papers while they send the best to our Transactions."
In case it should be suspected that we are here guilty of a breach
of official confidence, we hasten to explain that the above extract
is public property, having been printed by De Morgan in the
Budget of Paradoxes nearly two generations ago.
It is, as De Morgan pointed out, not quite easy to see what Lord
Rosse meant when he spoke of the societies sending their best
to the Royal Society, but the nature of his pretension is abundantly
clear. Such a claim was, however, not supported by other astrono-
mers. The Philosophical Transactions for 1850-60 contain only
four papers of an exclusively astronomical character, and it is quite
certain that there was no general acquiescence in the idea that our
Society should get only the second best. Lord Rosse himself,
though he had been a Fellow from a date within a few years of its
foundation, was not one of our ardent supporters. He only once
served on the Council (in 1827), and, with one minor exception
(in M.N., 14), never communicated any of his scientific memoirs
to us for publication.
A modus vivendi with the Royal Society has long since been
tacitly agreed upon, and such a difference can never arise again.
In fact now, owing to the great increase in the cost of
printing, the question has become inverted, and in place of any
jealousy between societies as to what they are asked to publish,
they are only too glad to find other bodies who will in any part
relieve them of an expensive duty. In 1850-60 the Monthly Notices
cost about 120 per annum, now they cost nearly 1000. Thus we
leave the Society full of energy and enthusiasm, eager for progress
and alert for new knowledge. We now, looking back, can see that
a splendid day was dawning, though the light was doubtless yet
faint and carried hope only to those blessed with the keenest
vision. New ideas were arising in every direction. Charles
Darwin's Origin of Species had just been published, and though
to astronomers the notion of evolution, of slow change and develop-
ment through countless ages, was nothing new, and was to them an
accepted factor in the history of the inorganic world, its courageous
application to the organic world justified and supported their
128 HISTORY OF THE [1850-60
own speculations and carried with it the hope of further advances.
The essential unity of nature, a unity assumed in the earlier nebular
hypothesis, and now actually verified for our own system by the
demonstration that the sun contained the same elements as the
earth, was thus in part proved, while the complete proof, though
difficult, was seen not to be impossible. The extension of this same
unity to the stellar universe soon followed, and with this extension
the ancient science of Astronomy entered upon a richer and a
fuller life.
CHAPTER V
THE DECADE 1860-1870. (By H. F. NEW ALL)
A DECADE which was so full of activity and achievement
in all branches of astronomical progress as that between 1860
and 1870, makes great demands on the self-restraint of an
astronomer who is called upon to set forth the history of our
Society at that time. There are great temptations to the
historian to digress from the strict lines within which he should
confine his efforts, and to allow himself to be guided in his refer-
ences, not only to events in other decades, but also to researches
which in truth belong to the history of Astronomy, and not to the
history of the Society.
This particular decade, 1860 to 1870, would certainly afford a
very interesting chapter in the history of Astronomy. But that
is not our present task ; still, some indication must be given of the
activity of the decade with which we have to deal.
In it we see the application of photographical methods to
furnishing the best basis for lunar topography and to recording
the complex phenomena of solar eclipses.
We see the development of spectroscopy, not only as affording
evidence of the widespread distribution of terrestrial chemical
elements throughout the universe, but also as giving proof of
the radical distinction between gaseous nebulae and unresolved
star-clusters.
We see the bold and pertinacious attack on the measurement
of the line-of-sight velocities of stars by means of the spectro-
scope.
We see also another triumph of the spectroscope in the discovery
of the nature of the solar prominences as outbursts of incandescent
gas, and the almost simultaneous discovery of a method of daily
observation of such prominences, which hitherto had been disclosed
only during total eclipses of the sun.
We see visual methods in the study of the positions and motions
of sun-spots replaced by photographic records ; but not before the
peculiarities of those motions and of the rotation of the sun had
been demonstrated.
129 9
130 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
We see greatly increased activity in the observation of
meteors and meteor radiants, and also the establishment of the
identity of orbits of certain comets and meteors.
We see great advances in the determination of the solar parallax,
great advances in planetary theory, and great advances in lunar
theory.
We see the development of the idea that the lunar acceleration
must be connected with tidal friction and the consequent lengthen-
ing of the day.
We see the figure of the earth defined in terms of a possible
ellipsoid.
We see the number of minor planets carried well beyond the
first century, the hundredth being named after that goddess of
mischief, Hecate.
We see the completion of Argelander's Bonn Durchmusterung,
and the publication of the following notable contributions :
Sir John Herschel's General Catalogue 0/5079 Nebulce (1864).
Lassell's (Marth's) Catalogue 0/600 New Nebulce (1867).
Rosse's Observations of Nebulce with his 6-foot Speculum (1861).
Carrington's Memoir on Sun Spots (1863).
De la Rue's Memoir on the Solar Eclipse, 1860 July 18 (1862).
Tennant's Memoir on the Solar Eclipse, 1868 August 17-18
(1869).
De la Rue and Balfour Stewart's Heliographic Positions and
Areas of Sun Spots (1862).
Huggins and Miller's work on The Spectra of the Stars and
Nebulse (1864).
Dunkin's Memoir on the Motion of the Sun in Space (1864).
Lockyer's early work in Solar Physics (1868).
Huggins's Memoir on his Attempt to determine whether Stars
are moving towards or from the Earth (1868).
Bond's monograph on Donati's Comet (1862).
Thomson's paper on The Rigidity of the Earth (1863).
Airy 's work on The Diurnal Variation of Magnetic Elements.
Chauvenet's Spherical and Practical Astronomy (1863).
Watson's Theoretical Astronomy (1868).
The decade was notable, too, for several remarkable astronomical
events.
The earth passed through the tail of a comet (1861).
The star T Coronae blazed out with great brilliance (1866
May).
The long-expected November meteors made their memorable
display (1866).
There were two solar eclipses which have become historically
notable : 1860 July 18, and 1868 August 17-18.
1860-70] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 131
This decade saw the completion of several large telescopes :
Lassell's 4-foot speculum reflector (1861), which Lassell and
Marth used in observations of satellites and nebulae at Malta,
1861. It was broken up before Lassell's death in 1880.
The Melbourne 4-foot speculum Cassegrain reflector (1869),
built by T. Grubb, and used by Le Sueur and Ellery in observations
of southern nebulae, very little of which has been published.
The Dearborn i8|-inch refractor, 1864, built by Alvan Clark &
Sons, and used by Burnham in some of his observations of double
stars.
The Newall 25-inch refractor, 1869-70, built by T. Cooke &
Sons, and now at Cambridge.
The Directors of Observatories in this mid-century decade may
be recalled as follows :
Greenwich
Cape
Edinburgh
Dunsiiik .
Cambridge
Oxford (Radcliffe)
Durham .
Liverpool .
Glasgow .
Armagh .
Madras
Melbourne
Nautical Almanac
Pulkowa .
Paris >
Berlin
Gottingen
Bonn .
Copenhagen
Athens
. G. B. Airy
. Sir T. Maclear .
. Piazzi Smyth .
TSirW. R. Hamilton
' IF. F. E. Briinnow
. J. C. Adams
Rev. R. Main .
Rev. Temple Chevalier
John Hartnup
. Rob. Grant
. T. R. Robinson
. N. R. Pogson .
. R. L. J. Ellery
. J. R. Hind
. Otto Struve
. Le Verrier
f J. F. Encke
' \W. Foerster
Klinkerfues
Argelander
. D' Arrest
Schmidt
1835-1881
1833-1870
1845-1888
1827-1865
1865-1874
1861-1892
1860-1878
1842-1873
1843-1885
1859-1892
1823-1882
1860-1891
1863-1895
1853-1891
1862-1889
1853-1870
1825-1864
1865-1904
1859-1884
1837-1875
1857-1875
1858-1884
fi8 7 6
fl8 9 2
11878
1-1873
fi88 5
ti892
fi882
fl92I
fi88 4
fi88 4
Among the references in the Annual Reports of the Council to
private observatories, we find the following names : Carrington,
Lassell, De la Rue, Lee (Hartwell), Selwyn, Dawes, Huggins,
Wrottesley, Rosse, Lockyer, Webb, Hewlett.
As we look through the records from the time of its first incep-
tion, the Society seems to have flourished most especially by reason
of the confidence which it showed that the science which it was
formed to encourage, could best be fostered by giving complete
freedom to its members to prosecute researches chosen by them
without any official pressure in special directions.
The absence of imposed guidance and the freedom of its indivi-
dual members is a feature which cannot fail to strike us now, living
in these days of tendency towards organisation of scientific work.
132 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
Fortunately our object is not to formulate new schemes, but
rather to recognise the tradition handed down to us and do homage
to the men of old. We can no more anticipate how our science
will stand a hundred years hence than our founders could predict
whither their methods and their labours would lead us.
To an astronomer who looks back through the century, the
feature which will probably strike him most is rather how little in
essential details is the change of outlook on the problems to be
studied and solved. The work of Newton had laid down lines
along which men's minds had contentedly followed ; and every
new observation that was made seemed to fall naturally into its
place in the system of the universe which Newton had formulated.
Even the most recent developments of Einstein and his followers
may be regarded, not so much as upsetting the Newtonian universe,
but rather as affording an opportunity of gauging phenomena that
present themselves in conditions which transcend those contem-
plated in Newton's philosophy. The stimulating influence of the
Society on the production of the work can hardly be over-estimated.
The Society was a focus, which performed a double service of the
greatest value. It served to bring the professional workers in
contact, not only with one another, but also with the large body
of amateur astronomers, who in this country have always formed
so marked a proportion of the whole constituency. The meetings
afforded an interested audience, before whom investigators were
proud to lay their contributions. The publications of the Society
insured their distribution to still wider circles in all parts of the
world, and so led to correspondence with foreign astronomers,
who gladly exchanged with our Fellows notes on points of common
interest in the activities of the time.
This is naturally true of the whole history of our Society,
but probably the increased facilities of communication by post and
railway made themselves especially felt as the decade 1860-70
was approached. For we see signs of a distinct change in the
management of our publications at that time, in the direction of
increasing the importance of our shorter communications in the
Monthly Notices, relatively to the larger papers in the Memoirs.
The custom of printing the octavo Monthly Notices and the
quarto Memoirs has continued throughout the history. The
Council considered the possibility of a departure from this custom,
and decided in 1858 against making any change.
In the following year, 1859, the Council had given further
consideration to the matter, and announced their change of
decision in their Report on 1859 February, as follows :
" The Monthly Notices continue to offer an easily accessible
channel of publication to observers and computers of all classes
i86o-7o] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 133
connected with the Society, while the importance of directing the
attention of Fellows from time to time to the labours of Astronomers
in other countries has not been lost sight of. ... A plan has
been carried into effect by which the Monthly Notices will become
an integral part of the volumes of the Memoirs. All are aware
that, for some years past, an octavo volume of Monthly Notices has
always been given with each volume of Memoirs sold. It has been
found that, by re-imposing the type of the Monthly Notices into a
quarto form, with double columns, it is practicable to form an edition
of the Notices which may be stitched up with the Memoirs so as
actually to form part of the volume. The expense of printing the
annual report of each year twice will thus be avoided. It has some-
times been suggested that it was unnecessary to make the annual
report a part of the volume of Memoirs, but those who have been
students of old history have always protested against the omission.
They have represented that it is a very serious defect of the older
Transactions that they supply no materials for the histories of
their several societies ; from which it not unfrequently arises that
the papers themselves are unaccompanied by information necessary
to their being properly understood as historical monuments. Both
ends are now made to meet ; the annual report, and much current
information besides, form a part of the very volume which contains
the larger Memoirs ; and the annual report is not printed twice."
These arrangements were carried into effect in 1860, and the
publication of the Monthly Notices was continued in octavo form,
and also in the quarto form in double columns. Thus volume 19
of the Monthly Notices appeared as an appendix to volume 28 of
the Memoirs in 1860 ; and so on until 1867, when it was decided
to discontinue the quarto form of the Monthly Notices. Thus
volume 36 of the Memoirs is the last to contain the reimposed
Monthly Notices, and volume 27 of the latter is the last that was
reimposed. We may conclude these references to the adminis-
trative side of our publications by stating that the volumes of
the Monthly Notices for the last two years in the decade con-
tained 325 and 231 pages respectively, large compared with the
earliest volumes, however small in comparison with our recent
volumes, some of which run to 700 or 800 pages.
Robert Grant resigned his duties as editor of the Monthly
Notices in 1859 November, on his appointment to the Professorship
of Astronomy at Glasgow. He was the author of the well-known
History of Physical Astronomy, published in 1852, a book of per-
manent value ; and to his literary tastes and his discernment in
historical matters we owe a considerable debt. He introduced into
our publications brief notices of valuable astronomical papers that
had appeared in foreign serial publications. He was succeeded by
Arthur Cayley in the editorship of the Society's publications.
134 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
Under Cayley's editorship, which continued until 1881, some
convenient alterations of form were introduced in the Annual
Reports. Until 1863 (in which year Cayley was elected first
Sadleirian Professor of Pure Mathematics at Cambridge) there were
no headings at all in those reports. Then we have headings to
indicate the observatories from which reports of work had been
sent, and a general heading " Progress of Astronomy " ; and by
1865 we have headed subdivisions throughout the whole report.
The somewhat ambitious " Progress of Astronomy " was modified
in 1869 to " Notes on some points of interest connected with the
progress of Astronomy during the past year." And so it has
remained with but slight modification down to the present
time.
An innovation was given trial during the presidency of
Warren de la Rue, in the form of insertion in the Monthly
Notices of brief reports of the discussions which took place at the
meetings after the reading of the various communications. The
reports were, however, not systematic, and though it was clear
that such reports were regarded as desirable and likely to be of
some value, they were not continued.
Possibly the improvement in the reports of discussions, which
were published in the Astronomical Register, may have been due
to this indication of an obvious desideratum. This astronomical
periodical was started in 1863 January by Sandford Gorton, who
was a Fellow of our Society elected in 1860. It had occurred to
him that it would be very desirable " to collect together those
stray fragments of information, which, though not of sufficient
importance possibly to occupy the pages of the Monthly Notices,
may nevertheless in the shape of passing conversations or occasional
notes, be useful for future reference." He wished " to introduce
a sort of astronomical Notes and Queries, a medium of communica-
tion for amateurs and others." It aimed further at giving an
account of the discussions which took place at the meetings of the
Royal Astronomical Society, both for the sake of those who were
unable to be present and also in order that some permanent record
of them should be preserved.
It must be admitted that the reports of the discussions were
of a very slight description at first. One would judge that very
often they recorded only some pithy remarks separated from their
serious context, and giving but a poor idea of the discussions in
which they were let fall. One can hardly imagine that the real
gist of the Astronomer Royal's remark about Bessel's probable
error in his measures of the parallax of 61 Cygni are justly
recorded when he is reported as saying that " these probabilities are
not worth a pin ! " However, as time went on, the discussions
1860-70] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 135
were better reported, and are often interesting as the only record
available.
The editor seems frequently to have had considerable difficulty
in satisfying the desires of all his various readers with regard to
the correspondence admitted to his columns. The great contro-
versy about the lunar rotation, in which Henry Perigal was one of
the protagonists, went on for months with persistent reiteration
of misunderstandings. Even Augustus De Morgan was drawn
into it, and he was reproached by one of the correspondents for
that in answer to a demand for a proof of rotation, he intimated
that a proof demands a capacity for the reception of proof.
The pages of the Register bear testimony to the interest taken
in a wide circle of amateur observers in such debated matters
as the question of variation in the lunar crater Linne, when
Schmidt, of Athens, called attention to it ; and the telescopic
appearances presented by the sun's surface when Nasmyth
announced his view of interlacing willow leaves, and a fierce
battle arose as between granules, soapsuds, and even cauliflower
heads.
There can be no doubt that the Register was very welcome
to many observers who desired to have their work usefully directed.
It became a means of publication of the earliest reports of the
Observing Astronomical Society, which was started in 1869 under
the keen Secretaryship of Mr. W. F. Denning, who was then in
his twenty-first year. In the following year the Society contained
forty-six members, and it may be regarded as an early forerunner
in an aim which later found a really fine fulfilment in the founda-
tion of the British Astronomical Association in 1890.
The Rev. J. C. Jackson became editor of the Register in 1872,
when Gorton's health failed. The publication was continued to
1886 December, and volume 24 was completed with the shortest
editorial note, " Finis, Valete."
In the attempt to prepare a chapter of history like the present,
a feature that strikes the compiler is the great value of the records
stored up each year in the Annual Reports of the Council. The
Addresses of the Presidents in the awards of the medal, the Council
Notes on Points of Interest, and the Obituary Notices, all combine
to present a view of the activities of any epoch in a way that is
rendered all the more valuable, inasmuch as the part played by
any particular research or by any individual is presented at diff-
erent times, and thus our final view of it is modified by the very
fact that we have, firstly, the Note calling contemporaneous
attention to a point of fresh interest and importance ; secondly,
possibly an Address setting forth a later view of a specially selected
136 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
piece of work in its relation to astronomical progress ; and thirdly,
the Obituary Notices, affording generally a still more distant
judgment of the contributions of individual workers. Indeed, the
abundance of records is in some ways even an embarrassment ;
for the compiler is in danger of becoming interested in points on
which he feels he should enlighten his own ignorance. Effort has
been made as far as possible to let the records speak for themselves,
and tell the tale of the decade.
After these introductory remarks we take up the true theme
of this chapter, the history of the Society in this last decade of
the first half-century of its existence.
The decade began under the presidency of the Rev. Robert
Main, F.R.S., who had been elected in 1860 February for the
second year of his term of office. He was then completing the
twenty-fifth year of his activities as Chief Assistant at the Royal
Observatory, Greenwich, an office to which he had been appointed
by Airy in 1835, when he succeeded Pond as Astronomer Royal.
Main had been a very faithful officer of the Society, and after five
years as one of the Honorary Secretaries, 1841-46, the Council
made a warm acknowledgment of his services. He had contri-
buted many important papers to the Memoirs, and the value of
those contributions to the promotion of Astronomy had been
recognised by the Society in the award of the Gold Medal to him
in 1858. Main was evidently greatly respected by his contem-
poraries as one who, quite apart from his devotion to his own
immediate work, spared himself no trouble in arriving at sound
judgments of the value of astronomical investigations within his
cognisance. He delivered three addresses in setting forth the
grounds of the award of the Gold Medal in successive years ; firstly,
to Carrington, for his Redhill Catalogue of stars within 10 of the
Northern Pole of the heavens ; secondly, to Hansen, for his Lunar
Tables ; and thirdly, to Goldschmidt, for his discoveries of thirteen
small planets.
Main's address in 1860 on Hansen's Lunar Tables was a long
one ; and it has a special value. It gives both a summary of the
early work on lunar observations and theory, and also a weighty
indication of the contemporaneous view of the great value of
Hansen's work.
Main's third address, in 1861, on Goldschmidt 's discoveries
of minor planets, reminds us of the value of work done by an
amateur in another country. Goldschmidt was an artist living in
Paris, and had passed the age of forty-five before the accident of
hearing a lecture at the Sorbonne by Le Verrier, in which he called
attention to an eclipse of the moon that was to occur on the same
evening, aroused in him an enthusiasm for astronomical study.
i86o- 7 o] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 137
Two years later we learn, with the proceeds of the sale of one of
two copies he had made at Florence of a portrait of Galileo, he
procured a small telescope of about two inches aperture. With
the help of the Berlin Star Charts he discovered his first small
planet in 1852, and Arago named it Lutetia. With slightly
increased telescopic power, in the next nine years he had discovered
twelve or thirteen more. He was elected an Associate in 1866,
and died only a few months later at Fontainebleau.
The rapid increase in the number of discoveries of minor
planets led to an agreement in 1863 between the Observatories
of Greenwich and Paris for a distribution of the labour of the
meridional observations of these small bodies. The agreement
took a peculiar form, which was determined by the obligation of
the Royal Observatory to maintain meridional observations of
the moon, a matter which had always been of high importance
in the responsibilities of Greenwich. Airy and Le Verrier arranged
to divide the additional labour of observations of the planets,
by the agreement that the Observatory of Paris should undertake
them from full moon to new moon, the Observatory of Greenwich
remaining charged with those from new moon to full moon. Then
was inaugurated what has been claimed as the first specific plan of
co-operation among astronomers. In the following year the
Director of the National Observatory, Washington, also promised
to co-operate in the observations.
Early in 1861 the Treasurer, Whitbread, had called the atten-
tion of the Council to the fact that the yearly expenditure had
exceeded the annual income by over 200. A Committee was
appointed at once to examine into the general subject of the in-
come and expenditure of the Society. They proceeded in the most
business-like fashion to their task, and drew up a valuable report.
It appeared from it that the average expenditure of the preceding
four years had been about 60 in excess of the average income,
which was increasing only at the rate of about 18 a year. The
adverse balances were ascribed as principally due to the growth of
the bills for printing. With respect to the treatment of corn-
pounders' fees, the Committee pointed out that :
By a minute of Council, March 1820, it was resolved that
all compositions should be funded, and the interest of the fund
alone treated as income.
By the minute of June 1828, it was recommended that on the
decease of any compounder his composition should, if needful, be
made available for general purposes, but that the permanent fund
should never be reduced below an amount equal to the product of
21 by the number of surviving compounders.
138 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
By the minute of June 1857, tne Council resorted to an inter-
mediate measure, and left it to the Treasurer to advise every half-
year. The Committee further stated that the funded property of
the Society, excluding the Lee and Turnor funds, amounted to
4900, and that the number of compounders was 160, whose
compositions were represented by 3500 ; and that the position of
the Society was therefore more than solvent in this respect, there
being an excess of 1400, accumulated partly by bequests and partly
by saving. They concluded their report by certain recommenda-
tions, dictated, they said, rather by motives of policy than by
necessity :
(a) That as nearly as circumstances will allow, all compositions
should be funded.
(b) That considering that the Monthly Notices have now attained
a bulk amply sufficient for their intended purpose, the editor be
desired not to exceed 24 octavo sheets.
(c) That in the case of papers for the Memoirs, the actual ballot
be deferred to the meeting of the Council in June of each year, so
as to allow of the formation of a scheme for the whole volume for
the year.
These recommendations, with a couple of others of minor
importance, were unanimously adopted, as appropriate for immedi-
ate action.
Samuel Charles Whitbread [1796-1879] had joined the Society
in 1849, and succeeded George Bishop as Treasurer in 1857 ; he
reigned over our finances for twenty-one years. Whitbread was
M.P. for Middlesex for ten years, and in spite of his interests in
politics and hunting, he found time in which he devoted himself
to the study of astronomy and meteorology, building an Observa-
tory at his residence at Cardington, near Bedford, and becoming
with John Lee and James Glaisher one of the three founders of the
Meteorological Society in 1850.
In 1861 a Committee, consisting of the Astronomer Royal,
Manners, Vignoles, Adams, Whitbread, Jacob, De la Rue, and
Carrington, was appointed to take into consideration the advisa-
bility of establishing for a limited number of years a Hill Observa-
tory in India. The matter had been mooted and much discussed
in 1858-9, but it had been laid aside in consequence of the unrest
which followed the Indian Mutiny. The subject was revised by
Carrington and Jacob, who had recently resigned the Directorship
of the Madras Observatory by reason of ill-health. Jacob sub-
mitted his views to the Committee in the following terms :
It has constantly been remarked that it would be indeed
difficult among numerous observing stations and fine instruments
which now exist, to point to a single one where a telescope of decent,
1860-70]
ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 139
respectable quality and power was placed in a position where its
capabilities could be brought out and the utmost obtained from it.
... It has become more than ever apparent that size is not so
much the quality to be sought as exquisite definition, excellence in
which requires admirable workmanship first and an admirably pure,
tranquil and continuously transparent sky afterwards.
The programme of observations included the following objects
as desirable : Physical Observations of planets and satellites,
especially Mars in 1862, parallax of Mars, observations of nebulae,
variable stars, zodiacal light, and double stars.
The final proposal submitted by the Committee was " to place
an equatorially mounted refractor of not less than 9 inches aperture
and of high optical excellence in the charge of Captain Jacob, at
a station to be selected from the many accessible points in the
neighbourhood of Poona, some eighty miles from Bombay.
There an elevation of some 4000 feet could be obtained " ; and the
proximity of arsenal and artificers would naturally be convenient.
The Council approved of the recommendation, and decided in
1 86 1 June to make application for the aid of Her Majesty's Govern-
ment towards the establishment for a limited period, under the
superintendence of Captain Jacob, of an Observatory in the
neighbourhood of Bombay, at a considerable altitude above
the sea. They received the following letter, which deserves to
be recorded once more as an instance of support promptly given
by the Government to an astronomical enterprise :
TREASURY CHAMBERS,
8 August 1861.
In reply to your application addressed to Lord Palmerston on
the 24th June last, for a grant to the Royal Astronomical Society of
1000, in aid of the proposed temporary maintenance of an observa-
tory near Poona, I am commanded by the Lords Commissioners
of Her Majesty's Treasury to acquaint you that the sum of 1000
having been voted in Parliament for the object described in your
letter, My Lords will be prepared to issue the amount in such
manner as you may desire, on the understanding that the Society
will see to the proper application of the fund thus placed at its
disposal. I have the honour to be, Gentlemen, your obedient
servant, (Signed) GEO. A. HAMILTON.
To the President and Treasurer of the
Royal Astronomical Society, Somerset House.
A letter was sent to his Lordship expressing the thanks of the
Council for the promptness with which their application had been
met. The sum granted was immediately paid to the account of
the Society, and Captain Jacob, having purchased at his own
140 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
expense a telescope of aperture 9 inches from Messrs. Cooke, of
York, sailed on 1862 April 26, with his wife and family, and instru-
ments, and landed at Bombay on August 8. A letter to Piazzi
Smyth ends with a postscript dated August n : " Leaving for
Poonah to-morrow. All Well ! " This was followed by the news
of his death on the i6th. And so in this tragical disaster ended
an enterprise which had started with so great promise of success.
The Society has always been proud that Her Majesty Queen
Victoria had, on accession to the throne, graciously complied with
the request that Her Majesty should become the Patroness of the
Society. It is an indication of the widespread sympathy and
anxiety on account of the illness of the Prince Consort, that the
Council Meeting which had been called for 1861 December 13,
was adjourned after the only business explicitly prescribed by the
bye-laws had been transacted. The Prince died on the following
day, and the Council met again on December 18 and drew up the
address of condolence, which was submitted to the Society on
1862 January 10 for presentation to the Queen.
The second year, 1861, of the decade began with an episode
which roused strong feeling at the time. It related to the election
of a new President to succeed Robert Main. In 1858 the Council
had reported that it had been invited by the united request of
five of the Fellows to discuss an alteration in the mode of electing
the Officers and Council. The proposed change seemed to arise
out of the opinion that the then existing method, which consisted
in bringing to the vote a list prepared by the retiring Council,
with individual liberty of substitution of any one name for any
other, gave no opportunity of previous concert in the election of
officers, except among those Fellows who happen to be thrown
together by circumstances. The matter was referred to the
next Council, and the result was that a Special General Meeting
was held on 1858 June n, and alterations in the Bye-laws were
enacted, by which the practice of submitting a list of Officers
and Council for election, hitherto followed by the Council for
convenience, was enjoined by a bye-law. But, in addition to
this list, any names forwarded by any two or more Fellows before
the ordinary meeting of the Council in December, were to be sub-
mitted to the General Meeting in February : the common right
of striking out any of those names and substituting others remaining
unaltered. The lists were to be circulated as soon after the
meeting of Council in December as could be conveniently done.
The effect of the change was frankly described (by the Council
which retired in 1859 February) as being that a much longer time
A. DE MORGAN
(1806-1871)
{By kind permission of Messrs. Speaight Ltd.)
To face p. 140.]
1860-70] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 141
is given for deliberation and concerted action ; and any two
Fellows could make known their joint opinions as to the persons
most fit to be the Officers and Council of the Society without trouble
or expense to themselves.
For the election of Officers and Council in 1861, the Council
received from six Fellows a requisition nominating John Lee, of
Hartwell House, for the office of President ; the Council's choice
for President was Airy. Accordingly the list was printed and
circulated, in accordance with the new Bye-laws, in a form showing
two nominations for the Presidency.
The ballot resulted in the election of Lee as President and Airy
as Vice-President, and the rest of the list as proposed by the
Council.
It is not easy now to understand the feeling in the Society that
could have allowed the recommendation of the Council to be
overridden. Airy had, it is true, already served three times as
President. Lee was completing his 78th year at the time of his
election.
De Morgan, who had the welfare of the Society very much at
heart, as is well shown by his two terms of eight years as Secretary
and long service on the Council, could look at the humorous side
of the matter in writing privately to Airy : " It is wondered that
the Airy party, who must have had the wind, should have allowed
the Society to fall to Leeward." But he took a very different
line in letting the Society know what he thought of their action.
He wrote to the Council, saying that he w r ould not accept the
office of Vice-President, and requesting that his letter should be
laid before the Society by being entered on the Minutes. It seems
a long and laboured indictment, and few men would either press
the analysis of the motives of their action to their bitter conclusion
as De Morgan has done, or care to have it published. After much
consideration as to whether it should be recorded here, it has
seemed right not to print it. Mrs. De Morgan published it in
full in her Memoir of Augustus De Morgan. London, 1882, pp.
272-278.
In looking back now at the episode in the absence of any
contemporaneous criticism, it almost seems as if De Morgan, in
his warm advocacy of the traditional custom by which the Society
had hitherto always followed the lead of the outgoing Council in
the nomination of the incoming Council, may have misjudged the
situation. The action of the Society is possibly to be attributed
not so much to a wish to upset a tradition, but rather to a chivalrous
desire to recognise Lee's frequent readiness to act as Chairman
during the Presidency of George Bishop, who almost simultaneously
with his election as President in 1857 had been overtaken by illness,
142 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
and was never once able to preside at a meeting of the Society.
Airy, Main, and Baden Powell each acted as Chairman three
times ; and Lee, six times.
De Morgan's friends naturally besought him to remain upon
the Council. He was, however, firm in his resolve, and he never
served again upon the Council. When, however, towards the end
of the year he was asked by the Council to lend them his friendly
services, as in past years, in the preparation of the Annual Report,
he undertook the work and carried it through. His combination
of rigid principles with good nature and sense of humour is well
known to those who are acquainted with his " Budget of Para-
doxes " ; and we could not have anticipated a refusal to help
in a good cause from a man who, when called upon to defend the
De in his name, could say that as he had seen in catalogues his
own name between those of De Moivre and De Mosthenes, he
was constantly tempted to make the same mistake in the Greek
name.
John Lee (1783-1866), who was thus elected President in 1861,
was the eldest son of John Fiott, and of Harriett, daughter of
William Lee, of Totteridge Park, Herts. He had graduated at
Cambridge as fifth wrangler in 1806, and was elected to a Fellowship
at St. John's College. Having obtained a Travelling Scholarship,
he visited Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land, and amassed a
valuable collection of antiquities. His antiquarian studies seem
to have been the main interest of his life. In 1815 he had assumed
the name of Lee by royal licence, in compliance with the will of
his maternal uncle. On the death of Sir George Lee, Bart., in
1827, tne whole of the family property devolved upon Dr. Lee,
and he then became Lord of the Manors of Hartwell, Stone, and
Bishopstone, and patron of two livings, to which reference has been
made in a previous chapter. At Hartwell House he had an
observatory built, where for many years astronomical and meteoro-
logical observations were carried on.
Admiral W. H. Smyth (1788-1865) was an enthusiastic
instigator of Dr. Lee's astronomical efforts. He was the son of
an American Loyalist, entered the navy in 1805, and was
actively engaged until 1815 in the Indian Seas and on the
coasts of Spain and Italy, where he had his full share of
adventure and danger. From 1817 to 1824 he was engaged in
the great survey of the Mediterranean, which has been described
as " the greatest scientific survey ever planned and completed
by one individual." After the end of his naval career he settled
at Bedford in 1828, and there his duties as a magistrate brought
him in frequent association with Dr. Lee. A great friendship
arose between them, stimulated by common interests ; and their
1860-70] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 143
mutual influences made Smyth an antiquarian, and Lee an
amateur astronomer. There is a human touch in the description
of the meridian marks which Smyth had made for Lee's transit
instrument. The adjustable metallic marks were let into blocks
of marble, the northern block being a representation of the Temple
of Janus, as given on a large brass medal of Nero, whilst the southern
block was a miniature of the fa9ade of the Temple of Concord at
Girgenti, with its central columns omitted for the insertion of the
meridian plate.
Smyth had moved from Bedford in 1842 to St. John's Lodge,
within a short walk from Hartwell House. Lee purchased his
instruments, and the two friends pursued their astronomical
studies together. Dr. Lee employed James Epps (17711839)
and Norman Pogson (1829-91) as assistants, Pogsori coming in
1859 January from the Radcliffe Observatory at Oxford, and
remaining at Hartwell till he was appointed Government Astro-
nomer at Madras in 1860 October. Pogson's work at Hartwell,
relating mainly to the study of variable stars after the method of
Argelander, was directed to the formation of an atlas of variable
stars, and he had completed nineteen charts, 80' square, on a
scale of 3 inches to a degree, with stars noted down to the twelfth
magnitude, and with accurate magnitudes of certain comparison
stars. Pogson carried on the work at Madras, and it appears
that out of the nineteen charts and catalogues reported by Pogson
as completed in 1860, six had been engraved and printed for Dr.
Lee ; for copies of them were found by Dr. Copeland in the library
of the Edinburgh Observatory. But Pogson's systematic work
had to wait till 1908 before it was published, after being prepared
for press by the volunteer labour and helpful generosity of Mr.
C. L. Brook, with an illuminating introduction by Professor H. H.
Turner, who has done so much to save from oblivion vast materials
of early observations relative to variable stars. To Pogson we
owe the discovery of many variable stars, and to him we owe the
suggestion of the definition of the magnitude relation 2-512 times
the logarithm of the brightness a relation that lies at the founda-
tion of all modern photometric work.
In these last paragraphs we have an instance of the difficulty
which the history of the Society imposes on a writer charged
with a single decade. He is diverted from a record of a single
President into an inadequate reference to work upon variable
stars. But still it is possible thereby to indicate the kind of
service the Society is able to render in a single branch when indivi-
dual members are willing by their loyalty and their labours to
advance the cause of Astronomy. We see the influence of Dr.
Lee, a generous patron of Astronomy, stimulated by that out-
144 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
spoken free lance, or perhaps we should better employ Dr. Lee's
own term, " that indefatigable officer," Admiral Smyth, who
was always having his tilt at the " magnates and dons " main-
taining a private observatory, chosing a promising line of research
then in its infancy, leaving it in the hands of a capable and en-
thusiastic observer, initiating work that only comes to fulness
years later under the fostering help of the Society, aided by its
loyal members.
Lee delivered Presidential Addresses in presenting the medal
to De la Rue in 1862 for his astronomical researches, and especially
for his application of photography, and to Argelander in 1863 for
his survey of the northern heavens.
Of De la Rue's work the Council in their report could " not
help remarking that this public recognition of the success of
chemical delineation of celestial objects may be an important
date in the history of Astronomy. No discovery of our day
affords a more hopeful field of anticipation than that of photo-
graphy, which seems destined to take that part in the astronomy
of visual phenomena which graduated instruments have taken
in the Astronomy of motions and positions."
The antithesis suggested in this quaintly worded comment
seems to have been dictated by the recognition that De la Rue,
stirred to emulation by Bond's daguerreotypes of the moon taken
at Harvard College Observatory in 1850, applied the newly invented
collodion wet plates to the photography not only of the moon,
but also of the sun, the prominences and lower corona, and of
Jupiter, Saturn, and some double stars, but had not yet fully
utilised his records for measurement.
Lee, in presenting the medal to him, justly said that " his
claim does not rest on the absolute priority of his application of
a well-known art in a new direction. It is rather based on the
fact that by methods and adaptations peculiarly his own, he has
been the first to obtain automatic pictures of the sun and moon,
sufficiently delicate in their detail to advance our knowledge
regarding the physical character of those bodies, and admitting of
measurements astronomically precise."
We shall have more to say about De la Rue's organisation of
measurement, and his other astronomical work, when we come
to deal with his years of Presidency.
Of the award to Argelander, the Council's Report (1863)
makes a bare announcement. Dr. Lee, in his address on the
occasion, began by giving a short retrospective view of astronomical
achievements since the foundation of the Society, and refers to
the balloon ascents of Glaisher and Coxwell. In this connection
a note in the Council's Report for 1862 may be quoted :
,
860-70] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 145
One of the main objects of these ascents was to extend and
improve our knowledge of the relation which exists between increase
of elevation and the corresponding variations of temperature and
moisture, these variations in their turn having an intimate bearing
on the theoretic determination of atmospheric refraction.
The results of Mr. Glaisher's observations indicate that the
hypothesis of a diminution of i Fahr. of temperature for every
additional 300 feet of elevation must be abandoned even for incon-
siderable heights above the earth's surface. . . . Through the
first 1000 feet under a cloudy sky there is a change of i Fahr. for
every 213 feet, but if the sky be clear there is a diminution of i Fahr.
for every 139 feet. At extreme heights, such as between 25,000 and
30,000 feet, it requires a full 1000 feet of additional altitude to cause
a diminution of temperature of i Fahr.
Herein is found the first discovery of indications of what in
modern days is recognised as the stratosphere.
It is difficult to see how Lee, in speaking in 1863 of Argelander's
achievement, " his Survey of the Northern Heavens," could have
missed the opportunity of a fine address. It would almost seem
as if he could never have had access to any of the three volumes,
3, 4, and 5, of the Bonn Observations, which constitute volumes
I, II, and III of the Bonn Catalogue, though they bear the date
1859, 1861, and 1862 respectively. He appears rather to have
contented himself with the slight information contained in two
notes published in the Monthly Notices : the first being a report of
progress of the charts communicated to Carrington by Kriiger
at the request of Argelander in December 1861 (M.N., 22, 57) ;
and the second being a note of twenty-six lines in the Council's
Report in r862 February (M.N., 22, 125).
Lee would seem even to have read Carrington's comment on
Kriiger's note unmoved. It deserves to be transcribed here :
The Fellows of the Society, and all to whom this account
comes, cannot fail to admire the stately progress of this enormous
work, which, simple in its conception, and free from insurmountable
difficulties in execution, would appal many an astronomer by its
vast extent.
The three volumes of the catalogue contained the magnitude,
R.A. and Dec. reduced to epoch 1855-0 approximately the mean
date of the zone observations completed between the years 1852
and 1859 of 324,198 stars. The catalogue was completed by
the issue of an atlas of forty charts containing a representation
of every star in the catalogue ; thirty-seven of them had been
published at the date of Lee's address, and the forty were complete
by the summer of 1863.
10
146 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
The value of the work as a preliminary survey of the Northern
Heavens not of high precision but of enormous utility for the
identification of stars to the ninth magnitude has received full
recognition from grateful astronomers, who to this day plot
fields of stars from Argelander's charts and use Argelander's sign
manual, such as B.D.+3I 2327, in their constant references.
His assiduous assistants Schonfeld [1828-91] and Kriiger [1832-96]
are not forgotten.*
That this work was at once recognised as worth the trouble
spent upon it was proved by the continued efforts to secure a
similar survey of the Southern Heavens. In 1862 our Council,
on the initiative of Carrington, who was doubtless moved by the
publication of Argelander's Durchmusterung volumes, appointed
a Committee (Airy, Carrington, and Hind) to report on the best
means to be pursued to carry out a survey of the stars of the
Southern Hemisphere. The Committee suggested the Cape,
Sydney, Williamstown (Melbourne), and Hobarton, as possibly
providing men willing to undertake the work. It would require
six or eight years to record 300,000 stars twice and to revise ;
a special staff would be needed, but the cost of the instrumental
requirements might be taken as negligible. In 1863, Strange's
name was substituted for Airy's, and a few months later the names
of Pritchard, Hodgson, and Manners were added. Meanwhile
enquiries had been made of Maclear at the Cape, Pogson at Madras,
Smalley at Sydney, Ellery at Melbourne, and Todd at Adelaide,
resulting in Maclear's accepting the polar segment from the south
pole to declination 50, and Ellery 's undertaking the zones
between declinations 20 and 40. In 1864, Adams was
appointed to the Committee in place of Hind, and in 1866, Stone,
who also had joined the Committee, was instructed to write and
express satisfaction at Ellery 's progress. But the undertaking
languished. And though, as will be later recounted, at Argelander's
instigation the huge undertaking of the Astronomische Gesellschaft
was initiated in 1867, the Southern Heavens had to wait for their
complete survey until Gill and Kapteyn carried out the photo-
graphic survey in the years 1893-1901. Meanwhile, Schonfeld,
who had left Bonn in 1859 for Mannheim, but took much of the
Bonn work with him to complete it, had returned to Bonn as
Director of the Observatory on the death, in 1875, of his former
chief and life-long friend, Argelander. He at once embarked upon
his extension of the survey as far as declination 23, and by 1886,
* Richard Proctor (1837-88) made an interesting chart by laboriously
plotting every star of Argelander's list on a single circular map of the Northern
Hemisphere on an equal-surface projection. Many of his earlier books,
which did much to spread an interest in Astronomy, were published in this
decade.
1860-70] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 147
after ten years' work, his catalogue of 133,659 stars was completed
and published in volume eight of the Bonn Observations.
In 1863, Airy [1801-92] was elected to the Presidency for
the fourth time, in spite of his expressed desire to be excused from
office. He served for a single year, and he was relieved of the labour
of preparing an address at the Annual Meeting of 1864 ; for no
medal was awarded. The Vice-President (Main), however, gave
a short address, and stated that the decision of the Council not to
adjudge the medal was occasioned not by any want of meritorious
work which deserved such a reward, but rather on account of the
very abundance of them. Main called attention to various points
mentioned in the Council's report, and added that " in the account
of the progress of English Astronomy it would be unpardonable
not to give a prominent place to the publication of Mr. Carrington's
book on the Solar Spots. It would be premature to eulogise this
admirable production, the merits of which would, no doubt, at some
future time be brought prominently before the Society ; but he
could not avoid saying that he recognised in it the same care-
ful elaboration and finish, the same attention to the minutest
necessary details of observation and calculation, coupled with
the broadest and most sagacious theoretical views which had
rendered the Red Hill Catalogue of stars a classic among similar
productions."
Main had given the address when the medal was awarded to
Carrington for the Red Hill Catalogue in 1859, and the anticipation
which the words just quoted suggest that a similar award might
soon be made for the solar work rouses some wonderment as to
whether the Council in 1863 November, having thought of awards
to several Astronomers, had refrained out of consideration for
Airy. It is on record that Airy had asked the Council to relieve
him of the obligation to prepare an address ; and if we are left
with a feeling of surprise that Carrington's solar work was never
crowned, it may be stated that it is also on record that Carrington,
having learnt that the Council in 1865 were preparing to include
his solar work in the list of possible awards, requested them to
omit his name from the list.
That Airy had reason to hesitate about undertaking any work
beyond his onerous official duties, w r e in these days have learnt
from the records of his activity published after his death. Main
had given some indication of that activity when he was speaking
of the help he had received from Airy in the preparation of the
address on Hansen's Lunar Tables in 1860. He described his
amazement at realising for the first time the amount of anxiety
and labour which had fallen on Airy, though he (Main) had been
for nearly five -and -twenty years so near his person, and generally
148 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
cognisant of all his efforts for the advancement of lunar theory
(M.N., 20, 166).
I was not aware myself of the amount of anxiety which the
bad representation of the lunar motions by the Tables of Burckhardt
had caused, more than twenty years ago, in the minds of some of the
greatest of our astronomers, till, when I was preparing for my
present task, the Astronomer Royal, with his usual kindness, put
into my hands his correspondence on lunar theory, continued from
the time when he was first called upon to occupy his present position,
namely, the year 1835, to the present time. Even if I had not known
how many great works he has brought to completion in the same
period how he has revolutionised the theory and the practice of
the construction of astronomical instruments, as well as of the
making and reducing of observations how he has borne the chief
labour in almost every Government commission for scientific
purposes, of which we need only mention the Standards Commission
how he has occasionally been engaged in optical researches, or
in the writing of profound memoirs in some branch of abstract or
mixed science, some of which adorn our own Transactions and all
apart from and in addition to the direct duties of his office I should
have thought the amount of care and labour which this subject of
the lunar theory brought upon him, even before he took upon himself
the responsibility of the reduction of the ancient Greenwich Ob-
servations, a very serious addition to the heavy duties which are
necessarily imposed upon him by the ordinary administration of
the observatory.
The reductions of the Greenwich Lunar Observations 1750
1830 were published in 1848, and the supplementary work bringing
the reductions complete to 1851 was published in the summer of
1859. Main's words serve to indicate the respect in which Airy's
activity was held at the beginning of the decade with which we
are here concerned. His work enabled astronomers to rise above
the inadequacy of the Lunar Tables of Burckhardt [1773-1825],
and prepared the way for the great advance made by Hansen
[1795-1874]. The fruits of his labour were being gathered at the
beginning of this decade. It must have been an immense satis-
faction to Airy when Hind, the Superintendent of the Nautical
Almanac Office, was able to give him the results of the computa-
tions of the moon's places from Hansen's Tables complete for the
years 1847 to 1858. Adams's discovery of errors in Burckhardt's
treatment of the moon's parallax enabled Airy to give a rigorously
fair comparison of Burckhardt's and Hansen's Tables with the
Greenwich Observations, conclusively in favour of the accuracy
of Hansen's. " Probably in no recorded instance has practical
science ever advanced so far in accuracy by a single stride."
1860-70] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 149
And so it came about that Hansen's Tables held sway for a genera-
tion. Of Airy's own later work this is not the place to speak.
Meanwhile new activities had grown up in Airy, and he strove
through the Society to promote co-operation among astronomers
on another problem of prime importance, the solar parallax.
The inadequacy of Encke's value, 8^.57, which was adopted in
1824 and was still generally in use, had been indicated by Hansen's,
Le Verrier's, and Foucault's researches ; and Airy said that new
observations could alone help us satisfactorily to correct our
obviously inadequate knowledge of the sun's distance. As early
as 1857 he passed in review the methods " available for correcting
the sun's distance in the next twenty-five years " ; and while laying
special stress on the transits of Venus in 1874 and 1882, he pointed
out the desirability of taking advantage of the favourable opposi-
tions of Mars in 1860, 1862, and 1877.
But activities of this kind were the essence of Airy's life, and
this is not the place to follow them up in detail. It is enough to
say that the influence of his personal and official labours contri-
buted enormously to the regard in which the Society was held
both at home and abroad.
Simon Newcomb [1835-1909], who in his Reminiscences of
an Astronomer, published in 1903, has recorded his experiences in
visits to England and elsewhere in Europe his first visit to
Greenwich was in 1870 gives what one may regard as a contem-
poraneous view of Airy. " We may look back on Airy as the most
commanding figure in the astronomy of our time. He owes this
position not only to his early work in mathematical astronomy,
but also to his ability as an organiser. . . . He introduced
production on a large scale into astronomy."
The problem of determining the movement of the Solar System
in space was brought into prominence again in this decade by the
increase in our knowledge of the proper motions of the stars.
Airy introduced his new method of dealing with such proper
motions, in a paper published in the Memoirs, 28, 143, dealing with
113 stars. Sir William Herschel's method, based upon an incorrect
assumption that the brighter stars are in general nearer to us than
faint stars, was unsuitable for the discussion of proper motions of
a great number of stars, though it was well adapted to the limited
facts of observation known to him.
Airy sought for a method which should not, like Bessel's and
Argelander's methods, depend upon a knowledge of an approximate
position of the apex of the solar motion. He accordingly decided
that instead of using the apparent angular motions of the sun and
stars as exhibited on the surface of a globe, it would be preferable
150 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
to treat their linear movements by reference to rectangular co-ordi-
nates with the sun as origin and the pole on the axis of Z. He
illustrated the application of his method by treating the proper
motions of 113 stars, taken from Main's recent determinations, and
deduced an apex of the sun's motion on each of two suppositions ;
first, that the irregularities of proper motions are entirely due to
chance error of observations ; and second, that such irregularities
are entirely due to the peculiar motions of the stars. A couple of
years later, Dunkin had applied Airy's method to the discussion
of the proper motions of 1167 stars from Main's values ; and the
results gave positions of the apex, both for Airy's 113 stars and for
Dunkin's 1167 stars as follows :
Airy, 113 Stars. Dunkin, 1167 Stars.
ist Supposition R.A. 256 D. +39-5 261 4- 39-5
2nd Supposition 261 +247 263 +25-o
To compare with
Herschel 260 +2o,'3
Argelander 256 +38-6
Airy recognised, of course, that his method, as then applicable,
had to proceed on the incorrect assumption that the stars were all
at the same distance from the sun ; and he expected to find that
light would be thrown upon the matter by the way in which the
sum of the squares of the residual errors was affected. But no
definite conclusion was forthcoming, " I therefore asked Mr.
Stone to examine the matter, as I may say, maliciously, to discover
if there were not some error : he has gone into it and can find
nothing wrong. Supposing Bradley made errors of right ascen-
sion, that might account for a good deal ; but the matter is left
in a most delightful state of uncertainty, and I shall be very glad
if anyone can help us out of it."
Much water has flowed under the bridges, as the saying is,
since then. There has come an immense development of statistical
methods in the last twenty years. But the episode is peculiarly
characteristic of Airy's philosophical mind.
To the year 1863 belongs also the beginning of another centre
of co-operation, the birth of the Astronomische Gesellschaft, which
was formed at Heidelberg on August 28, with a Council containing
the names of Argelander, O. Struve, Bruhns, Schonfeld, Zollner,
Zech, and Foerster. With the death of the last-named, in 1921
January, the last personal link with the original founders is gone.
De la Rue, in addressing the Society after the recess in the
first year of his Presidency, 1864, gave a very interesting account
of a visit paid by him to Pulkowa, in compliance with an invitation
which he had received as President of our Society, to take part in
1860-70] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 151
the festival given on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the inaugura-
tion of the Central Observatory of Russia. He had, he said,
been the more ready to accept the invitation because he had been
informed that many of the members of the Council of the recently
founded Astronomische Gesellschaft were to be present, and he
anticipated that it would be agreeable to them to meet some officer
of the elder English Society with a view to the organisation of
a friendly alliance, if not of a more intimate connection, between
the two Societies. He explained that the objects of the new
Society were in great measure different from those of our own
Society.
In the first place, it is not intended that it shall meet periodi-
cally to receive and read communications on astronomical subjects,
and it does not contemplate the publication of Memoirs or Proceed-
ings in the ordinary meaning of those terms. It has no honorary
members, no corresponding members or Associates, and is, in fact,
more properly a co-operative union of astronomers, who propose,
either by correspondence or by the occasional assemblage of its
members in various towns, to effect an interchange of ideas, and
to promote and encourage, by concerted and well-directed action,
such undertakings as may, from time to time, appear best calcu-
lated to aid the progress of astronomical science. Our German
colleagues have long felt the necessity that some understanding
should be come to among scientific men to prevent a waste of valu-
able activity from the circumstance of two or more astronomers
working on the same subject ; also that the zeal of the numerous
contributors to astronomy would be rendered much more effective
if it were in some measure directed by a concerted action. It is
thought that in many cases much good may be done by causing
certain preliminary investigations to be made, and, in others, by
effecting a revision and new reduction of the older observations
(Bradley's, for example) ; hence it is contemplated to use the funds
of the Society in getting this work done when necessary by paid
computers, and it is their further intention to print and issue as
speedily as possible the results obtained.
It will be a matter for consideration in what way our Society
can ally itself with the German Society, and it may not be very
readily seen how this can be accomplished, but I am sure you will
concur with me in wishing most cordially that that Society may
prosper, and possibly many of you will like to do as Professor Adams
and myself have done, join the Society and become entitled to its
publications.
The earliest biennial meetings of the Astronomische Gesellschaft
were held, the first at Leipzic in 1865, the second at Bonn in 1867,
the third at Vienna in 1869 ; and the Vierteljahrsschrift was started
in 1866. By the end of the decade the co-operative plan for the
152 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
accurate determination of the places of all stars to the ninth
magnitude between 2 and +80 declinations was organised
by the assignment of the separate 5 zones to various observatories
in Europe and America. Nearly ten years passed before the work
could be regarded as started in the majority of the zones ; twenty
years elapsed before the first instalments of the Catalogue were
published. The issue in 1910 of the Berlin C. Catalogue for the
zone +70 to +75 declination a zone originally assigned to
Dorpat completed the plan contemplated at the time of the
inception in 1869.
Another piece of work, which was put on the Astronomische
Gesellschaft's list of desiderata in 1866, was a new reduction of
Bradley 's Observations. It was undertaken by Auwers in 1866
and completed in 1876. The results of his laborious undertaking
were published in three volumes, which \vere issued in the years
1882, 1888, and 1903.
It was in 1863 that Huggins and Miller began to publish their
spectroscopic investigations of the chemistry of the stars, investi-
gations which had been instigated by Bunsen and Kirchhoff's
researches in 1859-60. Our Monthly Notices for 1863 March
contain a reference over the now well-known initials J. N. L. to
a brief note communicated by Huggins and Miller to the Royal
Society in February " On the lines in the spectra of some of the
fixed stars." This note was a very brief forerunner of their first
Memoir in the Philosophical Transactions. Lockyer's reference
to it is of interest, as showing at this early date the difference in
trend of thought in the new subject of stellar spectroscopy, a
subject in which Huggins and Lockyer came in later years to be
almost as frequently in disagreement as in agreement. Lockyer's
references to the note in question showed full appreciation of
Huggins's method of direct comparison of terrestrial and stellar
spectra ; he saw, too, the possibilities opened out of gauging
the temperatures of the sun and stars, and utilised Bunsen's
estimate of the temperature of the oxyhydrogen flame to hazard
a guess at a similar temperature for the sun. He added that
Huggins and Miller had succeeded in obtaining microscopic photo-
graphs of the spectra of Sirius and Capella.
In the following number of the Monthly Notices (23, 188), Airy
gave a brief note describing the experimental apparatus prepared
at the Royal Observatory for the observation of stellar spectra.
In this apparatus, ingenious use is made of focal lines formed
when an uncollimated beam falls on a prism displaced from the
position for minimum deviation. The work was initiated under
the charge of James Carpenter, who later collaborated with James
Nasmyth in the work on the moon (1874).
SIR WM. MUGGINS
(1824-1910)
^o fade p. 162-.]
1860-70] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 153
Here were the beginnings of the introduction of precise
spectroscopy into astronomical investigations.
Both Huggins and Lockyer, who stood out as the protagonists
in the new methods, communicated most of their work to the
Royal Society, though the fact that Huggins was one of the
Secretaries of our Society from 1867 to 1872 kept him in very close
touch with our Society, and he was frequently called upon to
speak of the nature and real significance of the harvest of data
that were being gathered in the new branch of astronomy to which
he devoted his pioneering activities. His clear understanding,
both of the power and also of the limitations of the new methods,
did much to keep men's minds from jumping to hasty conclusions.
Huggins's early stellar investigations were made with spectro-
scopes attached to a small equatorial, with an aperture of only
8 inches. They were carried out with such conspicuous success
that the Royal Society in 1869 decided to employ a large bequest
made to them by Benjamin Oliveira in obtaining " a telescope of
the highest power that is conveniently available for spectroscopy
and its kindred inquiries. The instrument will, of course, be the
property of the Society, and will be intrusted to such persons as,
in their opinion, are the most likely to use it to the best advantage
for the extension of this branch of science ; and in the first instance
there can be but one opinion that the person so selected should
be Mr. Huggins." The instrument was made by Sir Howard
Grubb, and Stokes, who was then Secretary of the Royal Society,
took great interest in the optical questions involved in the con-
struction of the object glass. The installation of the new instru-
ment provided Huggins with new opportunities, which he utilised
to the full in the following decades.
Nasmyth's observations of detail on the surface of the sun,
communicated to the Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical
Society of Manchester in 1862, and illustrated by plates which
were reproduced at the end of Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy
(8th ed., 1865), attracted wide attention ; and Dawes, Hewlett,
John Phillips, Stone, De la Rue, and Herschel joined in the
lively discussions that followed. So much attention was paid
to the description of " entities " that the essential feature of
observation namely, the fine-grained inequalities in the luminosity
of the sun's surface was in danger of escaping notice. But the
discussions served the purpose of calling attention to the study of
the sun's surface and in particular to the fine detail to be seen in
and around sun-spots. Sir John Herschel introduced Hewlett's
beautiful delineations of sun-spots to the notice of the Society.
Howlett continued his drawings for about thirty years, and they
154 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
were presented by him to the Society, and form a notable collection
of special interest on account of their bearing on the tenability of
Alexander Wilson's idea (1773) of sun-spots as depressions.
Lockyer's attack on the problems of solar physics, which began
in this decade with the help of the spectroscope, paved the way
to great advances, leading to the foundation of the Solar Physics
Committee and the Observatory at South Kensington in 1879,
and doubtless also in large measure to the establishment of large
observatories abroad, like that at Potsdam in 1874 and at Meudon
in 1876.
Warren De la Rue [1815-89], who was elected President in
1864, was the eldest son of Thomas De la Rue, the founder of the
eminent firm of manufacturing stationers of Bunhill Row. He
became a good engineer without having received any special
training, and his shrewd inventive faculty proved of great value to
the firm. We owe so much to De la Rue for his early development
of the application of photography to astronomy, that it is of interest
to trace the history of his work. His earliest scientific papers
relate to chemical and physical researches, doubtless suggested
from time to time by the requirements of his firm. James Nasmyth
[180890] has recorded, in his attractive reminiscences edited by
Smiles in 1883, how De la Rue had visited him in 1840 to consult
about mechanical appliances for a new process for the production
of white lead, and had then seen the process of casting some
disks of speculum metal for reflecting telescopes.
" I was then busy with the casting of my 13-inch speculum.
He watched my proceedings with earnest interest and most careful
attention. He told me many years after, that it was the sight of
my special process of casting a sound speculum that in a manner
caused him to turn his thoughts to practical astronomy, a subject
in which he has exhibited such noble devotion as well as masterly
skill."
Nasmyth cast a disk 13 inches in diameter for him, and out of
it De la Rue constructed his celebrated reflector, which he set up
in his garden in Canonbury, and later at Cranford. It is clear that
before 1852 December, De la Rue must have worked several
such mirrors. For in his notes on the figuring of specula (M.N.,
13, 44), in which he describes his polishing machine, he says :
. . . " I usually succeed in producing thirteen-inch mirrors, which
define the planets ... in a manner rarely equalled and never
surpassed by any of the refractors which I have yet had an oppor-
tunity of looking through. I am, however, free to confess that
they [the refractors] defined a fixed star much more satisfactorily
than my best mirrors." He acknowledges his obligations both to
1860-70] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 155
Lassell for his ready communication of his methods of manipula-
tion, and to Nasmyth for many most valuable hints in fine grind-
ing and polishing ; and he describes his own figurer and polisher.
He set up his best mirror, of aperture 13 inches and focal
length 10 feet, equatorially mounted but without clockwork,
in the garden of his house in Canonbury, and with it he studied
the planets and made admirable drawings of Saturn, and Mars,
and Jupiter, which were published from time to time. He was
elected a Fellow of the Society on 1851 March 14. This was the
year in which Archer applied collodion to photography, and
suggested the use of pyrogallic acid for developing the latent
image.
De la Rue was quick to seize upon the newly invented collodion
plates, and in the autumn of 1852 he made " some successful
positive lunar photographs in from ten to thirty seconds on a
collodion film, by means of an equatorially mounted reflecting
telescope of 13 inches aperture and 10 feet focal length, made in
my workshop, the optical portion with my own hands ; and I
believe I was the first to use the then recently discovered collodion
in celestial photography."
It was not till 1857 that De la Rue fitted suitable driving
clockwork to his reflector, when he moved it to his new residence
at Cranford, about twelve miles west of London. There he raised
his telescope on a pier 15 feet high, and arranged a photographic
laboratory beneath the floor of the dome. From that year onwards
we find in our Monthly Notices brief records of the work done at
his observatory ; and from them we learn that De la Rue was
constantly striving to surpass his best. He obtained new and more
perfect photographs of the moon, " which will be of great value
in forming selenographic charts and in showing correctly the
extent and direction of the moon's libration."
De la Rue's admirable w r ork in establishing solar photography
might possibly have come out of his own pioneering instincts
without any direct external impulse. But, as a matter of fact,
the actual development of the idea and its accomplishment arose
out of the discovery by Schwabe, of the periodicity of sun-spots,
and the subsequent discovery of the identity of the period with
that of magnetic disturbances.
The Kew Observatory building had been erected by King
George III. for observing the transit of Venus in 1769, and after
being maintained as the King's Observatory for seventy-one years
it had passed, in 1842, into the management of the British Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science, and was used for research
in meteorology and terrestrial magnetism and for the testing of
scientific instruments. In 1856 the new photographic telescope,
156 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
the construction and regular use of which for recording the state
of the surface of the sun had been repeatedly advocated by Sir
John Herschel, was installed in the dome on the top of the Obser-
vatory building under the direction of De la Rue.
A couple of years sufficed to overcome most of the difficulties
of the novel work, though the illness and death of John Welsh,
Superintendent of the Observatory, delayed progress. Welsh
was succeeded by Balfour Stewart, and then began that scientific
partnership between De la Rue and Stewart which is made
memorable by their joint communications published in the
Philosophical Transactions of 1869 and 1870.
In 1860 it was decided that the photoheliograph should be put
at De la Rue's disposal for the total eclipse of the sun of 1860 July
18 ; and the occasion was made memorable by the successful
photographic operations ; for they served to prove conclusively
that the brilliant extrusions seen round the dark limb of the moon
were indeed prominences connected with the sun, and, like the sun
itself, subject to gradual eclipse by the moving moon. When
De la Rue had completed the reduction of the observations with
the help of a special micrometer devised by himself, he found
himself impelled, by reason of the heavy weight of magnetic and
meteorological work undertaken at Kew, to undertake the daily
solar observations at Cranford. The optical tube of the photo-
heliograph was removed thither at the beginning of 1862, and
was attached to the equatorial, where it remained at work until
1863 February. The instrument was then re-erected in the dome
at Kew, and continued there in active operation for ten years
more. In 1873 February it was moved to the Royal Observatory,
Greenwich, and the fine series of solar records has been continued
there with frequent improvement in the instrumental equipment
and in the contributions of photographic records sent from observing
stations in various parts of the globe.
It is interesting also to note the part played by Carrington's
work in furthering the initial aims of the research. In the preface
of his " Observations of Sun-spots " (1863), Carrington recounts how,
when he set up his observatory at Red Hill, in the summer of
1852, for meridian observations of circumpolar stars, he was led
to examine a series of drawings of the sun's disk in the possession
of the Society. The discovery of the similarity in phase of the
periodic recurrence of sun-spots and of magnetic disturbances had
served to enhance the value of Schwabe's observations of the spots.
Carrington had hopes of deriving, from observations extending over
eleven years, the means of tracing system in the distribution and
possible movements of spots and of detecting the true period of
rotation. Even after Sir John Herschel, in 1854, had recommended
1860-70] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 157
photographic methods, Carrington with practical insight calculated
on the probable slowness with which this method would be brought
actually into application. Thus it came about that he secured
his fine series of visual observations between 1853 November 9
and 1861 March 31, and that the series of drawings made by him
on a uniform scale, such that the disc of the sun was a foot in
diameter, were available for the measurement of sun-spot areas
before the Kew photographs were systematically ready in 1862
February. Carrington's rotation period and his determination
of the sun's axis were utilised in all the later reductions.
We can well understand that the fact that Carrington and ,De la
Rue were Fellow-Secretaries of the Society during the five years
1857-62 contributed in no slight degree to the successful outcome
of their labours. De la Rue gave two addresses during his Presi-
dency, on the presenting the Gold Medal of the Society, first in
1865 to George Phillips Bond, for his work on the Comet of Donati,
and then in 1866 to John Couch Adams, for his contributions to
the development of Lunar Theory.
G. P. Bond [1825-65] succeeded to the Directorship of the
Harvard College Observatory after the death of his father, William
Cranch Bond, in 1859 January. He had been an assistant at the
Observatory for many years during his father's directorship.
The Observatory had been founded in 1839. G. P. Bond had made
independent discovery of no less than eleven comets. It is curious
that he never mentions in his Memoir on Donati's Comet, which
forms volume 3 of the Harvard Observations, and was published in
1862, that the discovery of the comet was made by Donati, nor
does he explicitly state the date of discovery, 1858 June 2. The
whole period of visibility of that wonderful comet extended from
1858 June 2 to 1859 March 4, an interval of 275 days : it was
visible to the naked eye for 112 days, and the tail was visible
for 177 days. Bond's Memoir deals with the tails, nucleus, and
envelopes of the comet, and is illustrated by more than fifty
plates, which exhibit in an admirable manner the changes that
occurred from time to time in the wonderful phenomena presented
by the comet.
The Council's Annual Report in 1859 gave a note of nine
pages about the comet. It is not easy to trace the authorship
of the early Council Notes. Carrington and De la Rue were
Secretaries at the time, and it is not improbable that this note
was prepared by one or both of them. It is of very unusual length
for the notes contributed in those days, and gave a valuable
summary of the phenomena. De la Rue's address gives us some
idea of the attention he had himself given to the comet, and it
seems not unnatural to attribute the note to him.
158 HISTORY OF THE [1860-;
The announcement of Bond's death on 1865 February i
seven days after the delivery of De la Rue's address, was mac
in the same number of the Monthly Notices that contained tl
address. At a later meeting the President was able to assure tl
Society that Bond had known of the award before his deat]
and greatly appreciated the recognition of his labours. Amor
his other achievements, Bond had discovered the crape ring <
Saturn and also Hyperion, the eighth satellite of Saturn. Indepei
dent discovery of these had been made respectively by " eagle-eyed
Dawes and by Lassell.
De la Rue's second address was given in 1866 February c
the award of the medal to Adams. It was a very able addres
and in the preparation of it, as Dr. Glaisher has recorded in h
obituary notice of Adams (M.A T ., 53, 199), he had the invaluab
assistance of Delaunay, and gave an excellent history of the proble
of the secular acceleration of the moon.
Adams [1819-92] was President of the Society in 1851 ar
1852, and in the latter year he communicated to our Society ne
tables of the moon's parallax. In 1853 he communicated to t]
Royal Society his celebrated paper (of ten pages) on the secul
acceleration of the moon's mean motion. It was for these tv
pieces of work in the development of Lunar Theory that tl
award of the medal was made in 1866.
In the interval of fourteen years a great controversy rage
In 1853, Laplace's discovery in 1787 that the secular variation
the eccentricity of the earth's orbit produced secular terms in t]
moon's motion was still regarded as having set the question
the moon's acceleration at rest. Adams showed that the tri
value of the acceleration requires the insertion of addition
terms into the equations, and the result of such insertion is
decrease the then accepted value of the acceleration. Plai
remonstrated, Delaunay intervened. Pontecoulant attacke
Hansen calculated. Le Verrier inclined towards an incorre
theory because observation supported it. Lubbock, Donkin, ai
Cayley joined in the calculations and discussions. " The whc
controversy forms a very extraordinary episode in the history
physical astronomy ; the indifference with which Adams's Memc
of 1853 was at first received, in spite of the interest and importan
of the subject, being followed by the violent controversy whi<
resulted in so many independent investigations by which Adam*
result was confirmed " (Glaisher, M.N., 53, 198). Delaunaj
account of the whole discussion appeared in the supplement
the Connaissance des Temps for 1864. He says. " L'apparition (
memoire de M. Adams a te un veritable evenement ; c'et?
toute une revolution qu'il operait dans cette partie de 1'astronoir
1860-70] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 159
theorique." Delaunay confirmed Adams's value of the accelera-
tion attributable to secular variation of the eccentricity of the
earth's orbit, and assigned the outstanding discrepancy between
observation and calculation to the existence of another source of
variation, namely, the secular lengthening of the day by the
action of tidal friction.
Adams had the great satisfaction not only of the recognition
of his own labours, but also of doing honour to Delaunay, when in
1870 he delivered the address on presenting the Gold Medal of
the Society to him.
The Rev. Charles Pritchard [1808-93] was elected President
of our Society in 1866. He had entered St. John's College, Cam-
bridge, in 1826, and was fourth Wrangler in the Mathematical
Tripos in 1830. Two years later he was elected to a Fellowship
in his college, and in 1834 he became the first headmaster of
Clapham Grammar School, founded as a new venture by the
leading men in Clapham. The new school, with its eager enthusi-
astic master, attracted pupils from all parts of the kingdom,
and men distinguished in science and the liberal professions sent
their sons to him to benefit by the breadth and originality of his
teaching. In 1862 he retired from the headmastership. He had
joined our Society in 1849, was elected on the Council in 1856,
and served as Secretary from 1862 to 1866. His election to the
Savilian Professorship of Astronomy at Oxford, in succession to
Professor Donkin, in 1869, was tne beginning of a new opportunity,
in which he showed untiring zeal and energy.
Pritchard delivered two addresses during his Presidency, on
presenting the Gold Medal of the Society, first in 1867 to William
Huggins [1824-1910], and William Allen Miller [1817-70] con-
jointly for their researches in Astronomical Physics, and then in
1868 to Le Verrier for his Planetary Tables.
The award of the Gold Medal to two persons conjointly in 1867
involved a suspension of certain of the Bye-laws. The ordinary
meeting of the Society in January was followed by a Special
General Meeting, at which a resolution was passed empowering
the Council " to award the medal to two gentlemen who have been
engaged conjointly in a work of astronomical importance." The
Council reassembled after the Special General Meeting, and pro-
ceeding to the ballot, they awarded the medal to Huggins and Miller
conjointly. At the February Meeting the Council resolved that
the medal be engraved in duplicate with the names of the two
recipients.
Little did the President or anyone else at the time think of
the revolution that was to come in the next quarter century.
160 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
But the first-fruits gathered in those early years were remarkable
enough, showing as they did that the stars differing from one
another in the kinds of matter of which their spectra could give
evidence are constructed upon the same model as the sun, and are
composed of matter identical, at least in part, with the materials
of our own system. Huggins's work on the nebulae roused even
greater interest than his studies of the stellar spectra. Lord
Rosse had inferred from observations made with his 6-foot reflector
at Parsonstown, that many nebulae which had not been resolved
into starry clouds with less powerful instruments could be seen
in his giant telescope as clusters of minute stars. The year 1864
saw Huggins's discovery of the gaseous nature of eight planetary
nebulae, proving that they could no longer be regarded as aggrega-
tions of suns after the order to which our sun and the fixed stars
belong, and that we must regard them as enormous masses of
luminous gas or vapour. The first steps in the solution of part
of the mystery of a comet as well as that of a new star were made
by Huggins in the years of this decade.
Some confusion still exists between the work of William Allen
Miller and William Hallowes Miller [1801-80]. The former was
Assistant Lecturer to Professor Daniell at King's College, London,
and became Professor of Chemistry in succession to Daniell at his
death in 1845. William Hallowes Miller was Professor of Miner-
alogy at Cambridge (1832-80). It was he, who in 1833 made
experiments conjointly with Daniell, on the discontinuous absorp-
tion spectra of iodine and bromine. It was he also who verified
the coincidence of the bright sodium lines with the dark D lines
in the solar spectrum some years before Kirchhoff's classical work
in 1859.
In the correspondence which passed between Thomson and
Stokes five or six years before Kirchhoff's celebrated Memoirs, and
which was found by Sir Joseph Larmor in arranging the scientific
correspondence of Stokes (Collected Papers, 4, 367), references to
the work of Miller occur in several places ; and the Miller there
named was William Hallowes Miller.
The meeting of the Society on 1866 December 14 was a specially
interesting one, for at it were received accounts of the observations
of the Leonids. A. S. Herschel gave the position of the radiant
determined by fifteen observers. Airy told of 8500 meteors having
been counted at Greenwich.
In anticipation of a display of meteors, such as had been
observed by Humboldt at Cumana, near the northern coast of
South America, in 1799, and by many observers in 1833, consider-
able attention was given to the observation of meteor tracks,
especially in the years of this decade. Humboldt had failed to
1860-70] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 161
recognise in 1799 that the meteors radiated from a point fixed in
relation to the stars. It was Olmsted, of Yale University, who
first in 1834 recognised the significance of this point as indicating
the direction of the meteors in their approach to the earth, and
he regarded them as a form of comet describing an elliptical
orbit with a period of about 182 days, and meeting the earth near
aphelion. Erman, of Berlin, discussing in 1839 the similar
problem presented by the August meteors (Perseids), found it
necessary to assume that the meteors in that case formed a con-
tinuous stream along their orbit.
Olbers, in 1839, was ted to predict a fine display of Leonids in
1867 November. But fortunately H. A. Newton, Professor in
Yale University, published in 1864 hi g well-known discussion of
ancient records of November meteors, dealing with thirteen
showers since A.D. 902, and indicating the existence of a cycle of
33*25 years. Considering the phenomena to be caused by a ring
of meteoroids revolving round the sun, he showed that in one year
the meteoroids must describe either 2^V S or i^, or ^
revolutions. He further pointed out that the longitude of the
node of the orbit is gradually increasing, and that its observed
motion would afford a method for deciding which of the five
periods is the correct one, if only the perturbations by the various
planets were calculated. He predicted a fine display of meteors
for 1866 November, a year earlier than Olbers's date. When
Newton's prediction was verified, the problem became a very
attractive one. It was made all the more attractive by Schia-
parelli's discovery that the cosmical orbit of the Perseid meteors
coincided closely with the orbit of the retrograde comet which was
discovered by Swift in 1862, and which reached perihelion on
August 22 of that year.
The spring of 1867 is made memorable by a display of striking
Memoirs following one another with almost meteoric rapidity.
In January Le Verrier published his Memoir showing that a swarm
of meteors with a period of 33-25 years would intersect the orbit
of Uranus, but from its inclined position indicated by the radiant's
latitude 10 it would not intersect the paths of Saturn, Jupiter, or
Mars. His calculations showed that in A.D. 126 there would have
been a close approach of Uranus to such a swarm, and that that
date might be the epoch of the capture of the swarm for the solar
system by their diversion into a retrograde elliptic orbit of period
33-25 years.
In 1867 February, C. F. W. Peters and Oppolzer pointed out
the close resemblance of Oppolzer's orbit for the comet discovered
by Tempel in 1865 December, which reached perihelion on 1866
January n, to Le Verrier's orbit of the meteors.
ii
162 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
In the same month, Schiaparelli had from his own calculations
of the meteoric orbit made the same comparison.
Yet again in February, Le Verrier, noting Peters's suggestion,
had recalculated the meteoric orbit, utilising A. S. HerschePs
determination of the radiant in 1866, and had found a better
agreement with Oppolzer's orbit.
And in 1867 March, Adams had completed the calculations of
the planetary perturbations, and had found that the observed
variation of the node of the meteoric orbit could not be reconciled
with the four shorter periods indicated by H. A. Newton, but was
completely satisfied by the longest period. From a combination
of five new determinations of the radiant with that derived from
his own observations with an instrument specially devised by him,
he deduced a definitive orbit still more closely in agreement with
Oppolzer's orbit for Tempel's comet (MJV., 27, 247). And
thus was established the close relation between comets and
meteors.
Pritchard's second Presidential Address was delivered in 1868,
on the occasion of the award of the Gold Medal to Le Verrier, for
his theories and tables of the four planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth.
Mars. It was with this work that Pritchard dealt in his address.
For his later work on the theories of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and
Neptune, the medal was again awarded to Le Verrier in 1876,
and on that occasion Adams delivered the address. The earlier
work led Le Verrier to infer that there existed on the one hand
in the neighbourhood of Mercury, and on the other hand in the
neighbourhood of Mars, sensible quantities of matter, the action
of which had not been taken into account. In the case of Mars,
the mass of the earth itself was at fault ; it had been assumed too
small, having been derived from too small a value of the solar
parallax. " With respect to Mercury, a similar verification has
not yet taken place, but the theory of the planet has been estab-
lished with so much care, and the transits of the planet across the
sun furnish such accurate observations as to leave no doubt of
the reality of the phenomenon in question ; and the only way of
accounting for it appears to be to suppose, with M. Le Verrier,
the existence of several minute planets, or of a certain quantity
of diffused matter circulating about the sun within the orbit of
Mercury " (Adams, M.N., 36, 232).
Considerations like these, set forth by men like Le Verrier
and Adams, even though half a century ago, still carry weight with
those who hesitate to accept the astronomical evidence of the
deflection of light in a gravitational field as a crucial verification
of the truth of Einstein's theory ; to them the astronomical evidence
1860-70] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 163
is less strong than that to be derived from other physical
phenomena.
Admiral Russell Henry Manners [1800-70] was elected President
in 1868. He had retired from active service in 1849. He joined the
Society in 1836 and was one of the Secretaries for ten years,
1848-57 ; he then became Foreign Secretary, and held that post
for ten years, till his election as President.
Manners delivered the address in 1869 on presenting the Gold
Medal of the Society to Stone, for his rediscussion of the Transit
of Venus in 1769 and his other contributions to Astronomy. By
reason of illness, Manners was unable to give the address on the
award of the medal to Delaunay in 1870 February, and he died on
May 9. As has been stated on an earlier page, Adams delivered
the address on Delaunay's work.
E. J. Stone [1831-97] was educated at King's College, London,
and in 1856 went to Queens' College, Cambridge. He graduated
as fifth Wrangler in 1859 an d became a Fellow of his College.
In 1860 he became First Assistant at the Royal Observatory, and
held the post for ten years, until he was appointed to the Cape
Observatory in 1870 on the resignation of Sir Thomas Maclear.
On Main's death in 1878, Stone was appointed Radcliffe Observer,
and held the post until the day of his almost sudden death in 1897.
He was one of the Secretaries of the Society from 1866 till 1871,
Huggins being his fellow Secretary.
Stone's work on the solar parallax was the chief theme of
Manners's address. Airy had in 1854 and 1857 taken steps to
move astronomers to a realisation of the need to revise Encke's
value 8"-57, derived from the observations of the 1761 and 1769
Transits of Venus, which had been held in general acceptance from
1824 up to the beginning of this decade. Hansen had also derived
from his investigations of the moon's motion a conviction that
Encke's value was too low (M.N., 15, 9), and had himself deduced
a value 8"-92 (M.N., 24, 8). Again Le Verrier had found in 1858
from his researches that a value of 8 "-95 was indicated. Yet again
Foucault in 1854 had measured the velocity of light and found a
value 185, 287 miles/sec. (298,i87km./sec.), considerably less than the
value deduced by Fizeau from his avowedly preliminary experiment
in 1849 (194,663 miles/sec, or 313,274 km./sec). Observations of
eclipses of Jupiter's satellites were taken as indicating a value of
about 192,500 miles/sec. All these lines of research called for a
revision of the value of the sun's distance from the earth. Hence
Airy's eagerness for a worthy attack on the problem, and the
readiness with which astronomers responded to the call. Stone's
reductions of observations of Mars made in 1862 at Greenwich,
164 HISTORY OF THE [1860-70
the Cape, and Williamstown, Victoria, resulted in a value of the
solar parallax 8^-94 (Mem. R.A.S., 33, 77). Similar reductions made
by Winnecke, of observations made in 1862 at Pulkova and the
Cape, resulted in a parallax of 8" '-96. From a rediscussion of the
observations of the Transit of Venus 1769, Stone, by a reasonable
interpretation of some of the descriptions given by observers,
deduced a solar parallax 8 "-91 (M.N., 28, 255).
Thus it came about that Le Verrier's value of 8"95 was intro-
duced in the Nautical Almanac for 1870, and continued in use until
the Almanac for 1882, when Newcomb's value 8"-85 was adopted.
Great preparations were made in 1868 for observing the total
eclipse of the sun on August 17-18. Two expeditions were sent
out from this country to India, one under Major J. T. Tennant,
arranged by our Society, with the financial aid of the Indian and
Imperial Governments : and the other under Lieut. John Herschel,
R.E., arranged by the Royal Society, with financial aid from the
Parliamentary grant annually placed at the disposal of that
Society.
This eclipse is made memorable by the success of the observa-
tions which enabled both Tennant and Herschel to announce
that the solar prominences exhibited bright lines in their spectra,
indicating at any rate the presence of incandescent hydrogen and
probably sodium and magnesium. Janssen's observations during
the eclipse convinced him that he would be able to see the
prominences with the help of his spectroscope in full sunlight,
and he recounted how for two or three days after the eclipse he
had been living in a veritable fairyland of new observations.
Lockyer, working in London, with apparatus which had long before
been designed for this particular research, but of which the com-
pletion had been delayed for several months in a busy optician's
workshop, was able to make announcement of the success of his
observations. It arrived at the Paris Academy only a few minutes
before Janssen's report from India, and the two investigators share
the honour of the discovery of the new method.
Another result of this eclipse was to bring about joint action
between the Royal Society and our Society in making arrange-
ments for the observations of the eclipse in 1870 December. This
joint action was renewed from time to time, until in 1892 it ceased
to be temporary by the appointment of a Joint Permanent Eclipse
Committee of the two Societies.
In reviewing the impressions gained in reading through the
records available for this chapter in the history of the Society,
one is led to feel that it was a decade of great and wholesome
activity. The heritage of large problems from the previous decade
1860-70] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 165
was one that called for great performance ; and the part played
by the men in responsible positions was worthy of the heritage.
Airy and Adams were the most marked men, and the Royal
Observatory stood out pre-eminent in contributing solutions of
questions of high importance in the Science, whilst De la Rue,
Carrington, Huggins, and Lockyer were breaking new ground
that was to yield splendid harvest in later years.
In the accounts of the meetings one gathers something of the
personality of the conspicuous men : Airy, a dominating figure,
unbending and gruff ; Adams, clear-minded, quiet, and helpful ;
Pritchard, lively and sympathetic ; Lee, stately and courteous ;
Carrington, impetuous ; Huggins, careful and judicial ; and
De la Rue, a man of order and energy, on cordial terms with
everyone.
Of the growing prosperity of the Society there were many
indubitable signs. In the middle of the decade the Council
prefaced their Annual Report as follows (M.N. 9 26, 101) :
The Council cannot recollect any former occasion on which
there has been better ground for congratulation to the Royal Astro-
nomical Society than at the close of the past year. Looking back-
wards ten years, they find the number of the contributing members
has increased by nearly thirty per cent. The attendance at the
Evening Meetings has more than doubled, and the funded property
of the Society, during the nine years' tenure of office by the present
Treasurer, has increased by upwards of 2700 stock. Applications
for the supply of the Monthly Notices of our proceedings continue
to be made from every quarter of the globe ; and several of the
numerous private Observatories scattered throughout the country
are showing signs of increasing vitality by the production of fresh
and valuable results.
The situation in Astronomy at the end of this decade was well
summed up by Stokes in his Presidential Address to the British
Association at Exeter in 1869. After referring to advances made
in dynamical astronomy, he spoke as follows :
After these brilliant achievements, some may perhaps have
been tempted to imagine that the field of astronomical research
must have been well-nigh exhausted. Small perturbations, hitherto
overlooked, might be determined, and astronomical tables thereby
rendered still more exact. New asteroids might be discovered
by the telescope. More accurate values of the constants with
which we have to deal might be obtained. But no essential novelty
of principle was to be looked for in the department of astronomy ;
for such we must go to younger and less mature branches of science.
Researches which have been carried on within the last few
years, even the progress which has been made within the last
166 ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY [1860-70
twelve months, shows how shortsighted such an anticipation
would have been ; what an unexpected flood of light may some-
times be thrown over one science by its union with another.
Then follow references to the work of Bradley, Huggins, and
Miller.
The determination of radial proper motion in this way is
still in its infancy. It is worthy of note that, unlike the detection
of transversal proper motion by change of angular position, it is
equally applicable to stars at all distances, provided they are
bright enough to render the observations possible. It is conceivable
that the results of these observations may one day lead to a
determination of the motion of the solar system in space which is
more trustworthy than that which has been deduced from changes
of position, as being founded on a broader induction and not con-
fined to conclusions derived from the stars in our neighbourhood.
Herewith we close this chapter, feeling assured that with all
its inadequacy it can hardly have failed to show that the Society
was handing on a heritage calling for great endeavour.
CHAPTER VI
THE DECADE 1870-1880. (BY H. P. HOLLIS)
I. 1870-1873
IN 1870 February fifty years had elapsed since the foundation of
the Society, and this Jubilee was recognised by an attempt to secure
a specially large attendance at the dinner, which it was then cus-
tomary to have on the day of the Annual General Meeting. A
circular-letter was issued to Fellows inviting them to be present " to
make the dinner an occasion of commemorating the foundation of
the Society fifty years since." * M. Delaunay, the recipient of the
Gold Medal, was at the dinner. The address delivered at the
meeting on presentation of the medal was written by Professor
J. C. Adams, Vice-President, and was read by him, as the President,
Admiral Manners, was absent through illness. f
At this February meeting, Mr. Lassell was elected President
for the ensuing year, and Mr. Huggins and Mr. Stone retained office
as Secretaries. The partnership did not continue long, because
Mr. Stone was appointed to the post of H.M. Astronomer at the
Cape, in June, on the resignation of Sir Thomas Maclear, and the
duties of the Secretaryship were undertaken temporarily by
Prof. Pritchard, Mr. Burr, or Mr. Dunkin. At the meeting of
Council in November, Mr. Dunkin, of the Royal Observatory,
Greenwich, and Mr. Huggins, were nominated Secretaries in the
list of officers to be submitted at the February meeting.
Mr. Proctor's name had been proposed for the Secretaryship,
but he declined the office as he was unable to give sufficient time
to the duties. As he took an active part in the life of the Society
in the years now to be written of, some extracts from his biography
may not be out of place. Mr. Proctor took his degree as twenty-
third Wrangler in 1860, and without following any settled profes-
sion, occupied himself in writing occasionally on astronomical
subjects. His first book, Saturn and its System, which took four
years in preparation, was published in 1865. In 1866 he suffered
* " The dinner will be at Willis' Rooms, at half -past 5. Price, including
wine, 2os."
f He died in the following May.
167
168 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
a severe pecuniary loss through the failure of a New Zealand bank,
and was practically compelled to earn his living by authorship.
He had joined the Society in 1866 and began his long series of
contributions in the Monthly Notices by papers in 1867 and 1868
on the rotation of Mars. The coming transits of Venus in 1874
and 1882 were now engaging attention, and in 1868 December,
Airy presented a paper " On the Preparatory Arrangements which
will be necessary for efficient Observation of the Transits," in which
he pointed out that the method of observation known as Halley's,
failed for the transit of 1874, and though it was suitable for that
of 1882 there was a difficulty in finding a suitable southern
station ; and that it would be advisable to plan the observations
of the first of the pair according to Delisle's method. Mr. Proctor
communicated a paper to the Society in 1869 March, showing that
Halley's method was quite suitable for the 1874 transit, a view
taken by M. J. Puiseux in a contribution to the Comptes Rendus
of 1869 February, and he followed this with a more complete and
detailed paper read at the meeting in May, which will be found in
the Monthly Notices of 1869 June. Mr. Stone took up the discussion
on the part of the Astronomer Royal. The feeling that existed
with regard to this matter appears from the following extract
from a letter written by Mr. Proctor to the Astronomer Royal
on 1869 May 15, the day after the meeting of the Society :
The high respect and esteem in which the scientific world
holds the name of the Astronomer Royal for England is shared in
by no one more fully than by myself. But I should consider that
no greater discourtesy could be shown to that name than by an
attempt to modify statements of scientific fact in presence of it.
Mr. Stone praised such a course on M. Puiseux 's part as a piece of
courtesy ; but M. Puiseux must in justice be acquitted of so serious
an offence against scientific morality and of what would have been
a gross rudeness towards yourself.
I think I stated the simple truth when I said last night that
no man living has so earnest a desire to see the coming transits
properly utilised as yourself : and I conceive that in pointing to a
certain application of Halley's method in 1874 as the most powerful
mode of determining the sun's distance available until the twenty-
first century, I was fulfilling what no one would admit more readily
than yourself to be a duty.
The subject of the Transit of Venus and this discussion will
be treated in more detail later, as the incidents are being related to
some extent in chronological order.
At the meetings in the year 1870 the subject of observation
of the total solar eclipse of December 22 was repeatedly brought
before the Society. The central line of this eclipse passed over
1870-80]
ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 169
the south coast of Spain, Sicily, and the north coast of Africa,
and it was proposed to repeat the experience of the eclipse of 1860,
when the Admiralty provided a ship to convey an expedition to
a convenient spot for observation. At the meeting in March,
Mr. G. F. Chambers,* asked whether the Government proposed to
help astronomers in going out to Spain to observe the eclipse.
He was told that the Government did not propose to do anything
of the kind, but that the Council were prepared to lay before the
authorities a statement of the required observations, and to
urge the necessity for some assistance.f The Council had on that
day resolved itself into a Committee to consider the preparations
necessary, and in the following month a Committee of the Society
united itself with a Committee of the Royal Society appointed for
the same purpose, Professor Stokes being Secretary of the joint
body. The Society voted the sum of 250 towards the expenses,
to which the Royal Society added an equal sum. The Astronomer
Royal, as spokesman for the two Societies, asked the Admiralty
to supply two ships, one to take observers to Spain, the other to
Syracuse in Sicily ; but the application was not acceded to, and a
further application was therefore made to the Treasury. It was
not until the day of the November meeting (the nth) that the
Committee were able to count on any help from the Government,
and it appears that this help was given, after a previous definite
refusal, by reason of the intervention of Mr. Lockyer who
explained the necessity to the officials concerned. The use
of H.M.S. Urgent was granted to carry observers to Spain,
and the sum of 2000 was contributed by the Treasury towards
the expenses. An organising Committee was appointed, of which
Mr. Norman Lockyer was Secretary, and Mr. Ranyard, Assistant
Secretary.
The first-named has already been mentioned. He was at this
time a clerk in the War Office, but was already famous in the
astronomical world for his solar spectroscopic researches, and
specially for his suggestion, made in 1866, and his discovery in
1868 of the method of observing prominences at times other
than when the sun is eclipsed, the credit for which is shared
with M. Janssen. Mr. A. C. Ranyard, who was a prominent
figure in the affairs of the Society later on, had joined the Society
in 1863 at the age of eighteen, before proceeding to Cambridge,
and at this time was reading for the Bar.
* An amateur astronomer who joined the Society in 1864, and the author
of a well-known book, Handbook of Descriptive Astronomy.
t A circular (printed in the Monthly Notices for 1870 April) was sent by
direction of the Council to all Fellows of the Society, inviting those who were
willing to take part in the eclipse observations to send their names to the
Secretaries. It appears that fifty or sixty volunteered in response.
170 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
On December 6 the Urgent left Portsmouth, taking three parties,
made up chiefly of Fellows of the Society under the leadership of
the Rev. S. Perry, Captain Parsons, R.E., and Mr. Huggins, bound
respectively for Cadiz, Gibraltar, and Oran, in Algeria, and with
them were Professor and Mrs. S. Newcomb. Another expedition
under the leadership of Mr. Lockyer, comprising amongst others,
Professor Roscoe, Mr. Darwin, Mr. Vignoles, and Mr. Ranyard,
went by overland route to Naples, and left that port to cross to
Catania (Sicily) in H.M.S. Psyche. Unfortunately the vessel struck
on a rock near Catania, but all hands, and the instruments, were
saved without injury. Lord Lindsay, who was not then a Fellow
of the Society, took an observing party at his own expense to Cadiz.
On the day of the eclipse the sky was more or less obscured by
cloud at all the stations. At Cadiz and at Syracuse successful
photographs of the corona were obtained, as well as some spectrum
and polarisation observations, but at Oran nothing was seen of
the eclipse at totality. The photographs of the corona taken at
Syracuse by Mr. Brothers with a rapid rectilinear photographic
lens, showed great extensions and were considered specially
successful.
As indication of the state of knowledge of the sun's surroundings
at the time, it may be remarked that at the meeting in 1870 June
a paper by Mr. Seabroke " On the determination whether the Corona
is a Terrestrial or Solar Phenomenon," led to a discussion on this
fundamental point in Solar Astronomy. Mr. Lockyer 's " theory
of a terrestrial origin of the corona " was spoken of, the reference
probably being to an article by him in the first number of Nature,
in which he said, " Since that time I confess the conviction, that
the corona is nothing else than an effect, due to the passage of
sunlight through our own atmosphere near the moon's place, has
been growing stronger and stronger." Dr. Gould, the American
astronomer, who was at the meeting, spoke of his observations
during the eclipse of 1869 August 7, and said that he thought the
symmetry of the corona about the sun's axis of rotation pointed
to the fact that it was of solar origin, and that the trapezoidal
corona might be nothing more than the chromosphere seen under
unusually favourable circumstances, but he was inclined to think
that the light outside that four-cornered corona which appeared
to shift in position was an effect of our atmosphere.
The Society as a body took a less active part in the arrange-
ments for the observation of the solar eclipse of 1871 December
12, on which occasion the line of totality crossed India, Ceylon,
and Australia. The subject was brought before the Council at
their meeting in June, when it was at first suggested that the
Indian arrangements should be left in the hands of Mr. Pogson,
] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 171
Director of the Madras Observatory, the Astronomer Royal
consenting to act as an intermediary. It was, however, proposed
by Mr. Lockyer, Mr. De la Rue seconding, that the Imperial and
Indian Governments should be asked to provide facilities for a
few competent observers, who might volunteer, to proceed to India
and Ceylon free of expense to make observations at those places.
A Committee was appointed to consider this proposal, and at a
meeting on June 28 it was resolved that the observations should
be limited to a complete examination of the corona, and that Mr.
Huggins and Mr. Lockyer should be asked whether they would
go to India to undertake this. At a subsequent meeting of the
Committee on July 7, at which Mr. Lockyer was present, it was
reported that Mr. Huggins could not go, but Mr. Lockyer expressed
his willingness to do so if he could get leave from his duties. He also
mentioned that he knew that the officers of the Royal Society were
prepared to join the Royal Astronomical Society Committee in
applying to the Treasury for a grant, and gave the outlines of a
scheme of observation that he had prepared, which included
spectroscopic as well as photographic observations of the corona.
The Committee resolved that they had no power to form part of
a joint Committee, and adhered to their resolution of June 28,
that only a complete examination of the corona, not comprising
spectroscopic work, should be attempted. To this Mr. Lockyer
would not agree, and he declined to go. Under these circumstances
it was decided to proceed no further in the matter, and the organ-
isation of observation of the eclipse passed into the hands of the
British Association. At the Annual Meeting of the Association,
which was held at Edinburgh in that year, a Committee was formed,
Lassell, De la Rue, Airy, Stokes, and Lockyer being the active
members, to take in hand matters relating to the eclipse. A grant of
2000 was obtained from the Government, and eventually an observ-
ing party went to Ceylon under the leadership of Mr. Lockyer, and
met with complete success. Arrangements for observation of the
eclipse in India were put in the hands of Major J. F. Tennant
by the Indian Government, who provided the necessary resources.
This expedition, and those sent out by other Governments to
various stations on the line of totality, were equally successful,
but the observers in Australia were not favoured with good
weather conditions.
It seems appropriate to mention here the origin of the volume
of the Society's Memoirs (41) known generally as the Eclipse
Volume. It was the outcome of a suggestion by Airy, that the
results obtained by the observers of the eclipses of 1860 and 1870,
who were subsidised by the Government, should be published at
public expense. The Treasury refused to grant funds for the
172 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
purpose, and Airy consequently wrote a letter to the Council on
1872 January 12 informing them of this refusal and asking for
financial help from the Society for his scheme. The Council
resolved that the account should be published as a Memoir of the
Society. This was eventually done, the preparation being confided
to Mr. Ranyard, who at first worked under the direction of Sir George
Airy. Later on, the entire work devolved upon him, and the scheme
of the volume was enlarged. Consent was obtained from the
British Association to include the results of the eclipse of 1871,
and those of earlier eclipses were added, so that finally it became
a record of all observed eclipses up to 1878. The volume was
completed after a delay, which caused occasional remark, and
was published in 1879.
No medal was awarded in the year 1871, and the reasons for
this are of interest. At the Council Meeting in 1870 November,
it was proposed by Mr. Dunkin, Mr. De la Rue seconding, that
Mr. Lockyer should receive the medal for his researches in Solar
Physics. Other recipients were proposed, and lastly it was
proposed by Mr. Browning, Professor Pritchard seconding, that
Mr. Lockyer and Dr. Frankland should receive the medal for their
joint researches in Solar Physics.
At the Council Meeting in 1870 December the ballot was taken
and Mr. Lockyer's was the name chosen to be submitted for
confirmation at the meeting in January. But at that meeting,
after considerable discussion, the choice was not confirmed. At
the Annual General Meeting in 1871 February the President stated,
as may be read in the account of the meeting in the Monthly Notices,
that the non-award was due to the fact that by the Bye-laws the
Council had not the power to bestow a joint medal, and that the
Council had " found it impossible to select any individual so pre-
eminently distinguished by his own independent researches that they
could recommend the Society to bestow its award upon him, with-
out danger of doing injustice to others." But it is not difficult to
infer from the discussions at the Council Meetings, and from sub-
sequent events, that there was a feeling inimical to Mr. Lockyer.
At a Special General Meeting of the Society held on 1871 June 9,
a new Bye-law was proposed by the Council and passed, to the
effect that " where two or more persons have been jointly concerned
in the production of any scientific treatise, or the carrying out of
any research work or discovery, or have been the simultaneous
but independent authors of any such treatise, work, research, or
discovery," the Council have power to award a medal to each of
such joint authors. It will be remembered that the medal had
been awarded to Mr. Huggins and Professor Miller jointly in 1867.
As to the award of the medal in 1872, at the meeting of the
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 173
Council in November 1871, the names of Mr. Lockyer and Dr.
Frankland were proposed as recipients by Mr. De la Rue, and
seconded by Mr. Browning, for their joint researches in Solar
Physics and the Spectra of Gaseous Bodies. The names of other
astronomers were proposed, and of these Professor Schiaparelli
was selected at the December Meeting and received the medal
at the Annual General Meeting in 1872 Febmary, for his Researches
on the Connection between the Orbits of Comets and Meteors.
Beyond the communications relating to the arrangements
for the eclipse of 1870 and the reports of the results, there was
rather a scarcity of papers read before the Society in the years
1870 and 1871. Mr. Proctor was the largest contributor, and there
are more than twenty papers by him in these two years.
The star Eta Argus, and alleged changes in the nebula
surrounding it, formed the subject of several communications in
1871. A noteworthy paper by Professor Alexander Herschel
will be found in the Monthly Notices for June of that year, which
expounded an idea conceived by his brother, Captain Herschel,
for the automatic registration of transits, and gives his own (Pro-
fessor A. Herschel's) plan for carrying this out mechanically.
The method of this apparatus is in effect precisely that of the type
of registering transit micrometer brought into use twenty years
later, in which the wire is moved by mechanical means, with the
useful addition that a means was provided for the observer to
suppress the record of a contact if he were not satisfied that the
coincidence of the wire and star was perfect.
The Society lost by death three distinguished Fellows in the
year 1871 : Sir John Herschel, Mr. Babbage, and Professor De
Morgan, the two first-named were the last survivors of those who
met at the Freemasons' Tavern in 1820 January to consider the
expediency of establishing an Astronomical Society.
At the Annual General Meeting in 1872 February, Professor
Cayley was elected President, Mr. Huggins retired from the
Secretaryship, and Mr. Proctor was chosen to succeed him.
The following session, March-June, was remarkable for a dis-
cussion, or series of discussions, in the Council. The subject found
its way later into the public press under the heading of Government
Aid to Science, or the Endowment of Research, and though action
was not taken at this time, the proposal made to the Society in
this session may be considered to have resulted in the establish-
ment of the Observatory at South Kensington, which later on
played such a large part in the development of Astrophysics.
The matter was initiated by Lieut. -Colonel Strange, the Foreign
Secretary, who had been a distinguished officer of the Indian
Trigonometrical Survey, and had retired from the army in 1861.
174 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
He was then appointed Inspector of Scientific Instruments for
India, and in that capacity was the first Superintendent of the
depot at Lambeth, where an Observatory was erected for him,
in which he did much good work in designing and testing apparatus.
He joined the Society in 1861, served on the Council almost con-
tinuously from 1863, and was chosen Foreign Secretary in 1870.
Many papers on instrumental subjects will be found in the indexes
under his name.
At the meeting at Norwich in 1868, the British Association,
at the instance of Colonel Strange, took into consideration the
subject of Government Aid for Science. This led to little result,
but in April 1872, Colonel Strange, claiming to follow the lead of
Sir George Airy, who a few months earlier had proposed that an
observatory should be established solely for the observation of
the phenomena of Jupiter's satellites, read a paper before our
Society on " The Insufficiency of Existing National Observatories."
In this he asserted that permanent national provision for the
cultivation of the Physics of Astronomy was urgently needed.
At the meeting of the Council in May he proposed that " the
President be authorised, on behalf of the Fellows and Council
of the Royal Astronomical Society, to bring before the Royal
Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of
Science, now sitting, the desirability of providing for the cultivation
of the Physics of Astronomy." The Commission referred to was
under the Chairmanship of the Duke of Devonshire, and had been
in existence for two or three years. It had been established,
it is said, largely owing to Colonel Strange's persistent advocacy
of the necessity for Government aid for the promotion of scientific
research. Mr. Lockyer was Secretary of this Commission. It
had at the time practically completed the first part of its work,
which was concerned with scientific instruction. After discussion
by the Council in May, consideration of Colonel Strange's proposal
was adjourned to the June meeting, and then to a Special Meeting
of the Council on June 21, and again to another on June 28. At
this last meeting the following motions proposed by Dr. Huggins
were taken into consideration :
1. That the President be authorised, on behalf of the Council
and Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society, to bring before the
Royal Commissioners on Scientific Instruction and on the Advance-
ment of Science, now sitting, the importance of further aid being
afforded to the cultivation of the Physics of Astronomy.
2. The Council think such aid would be most effectually given
by increased assistance where needed to existing Public Observa-
tories in the direction recommended by the heads of those observa-
tories, especially that at the Cape of Good Hope, and by the estab-
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 175
lishment of a new Observatory, on the Highlands of India, or in
some other part of the British dominions where the climate is
favourable for the use of large instruments.
3. The Council do not recommend the establishment of an
independent Government Observatory for the cultivation of Astro-
nomical Physics in England, especially as they have been informed
that the Board of Visitors of the Royal Observatory at their recent
meeting recommended the taking of Photographic and Spectro-
scopic records of the Sun at that Observatory.
It was proposed in amendment by Colonel Strange, seconded
by Mr. De la Rue, that the following be substituted for these
clauses :
The following seems to the Council to be the provision now
requisite :
1. An Observatory, with a laboratory and workshop of
moderate extent attached to it, to be established in England
for the above researches.
2. A certain number of Branch observatories, to be estab-
lished in carefully-selected positions in British territory, in
communication with the Central Observatory in England, for
the purpose of first, giving to Photographic Solar Registry
that continuity which experience has already proved to be
necessary ; and, secondly, to investigate the effect of the
Earth's Atmosphere on Physico-Astronomical Researches in
different geographical regions, and at different altitudes. In
these purposes India and the Colonies offer peculiar advantages.
The amendment did not receive approval, but the three
substantive clauses were carried by vote at the meeting on June
28. This is the bare record of the result of the proceedings, but
in the course of the discussion Colonel Strange had defined the
physics of Astronomy as including photographic, spectroscopic,
actinic, photometric, and polariscopic observations of the sun ;
ocular, photographic, and photometric observations of the moon,
and observation and examination of planets, nebulae, comets,
zodiacal light, stars, asteroids, by the same methods so far as they
are applicable. Further, he suggested the resolution that, " having
in view the extent of the work above indicated, and the fact that
no individual has as yet distinguished himself equally in these
researches and in the more exact department of Astronomy, it
appears to be both an administrative convenience and an intel-
lectual necessity that the two departments should be kept distinct."
There was evidently a feeling against the establishment of a
Solar Physical Observatory * under independent control apart
* Though it does not appear on the records, it is known that Mr. Lockyer's
name was associated by many with the proposed Solar Observatory.
176 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
from Greenwich, but the opponents of an establishment of this
kind were prepared to support an extension of the existing National
Observatories.
The spirit in which the discussion was conducted and the
feeling that existed in the Council may be inferred from the fact
that at the meeting in 1872 November, Mr. De la Rue, Colonel
Strange, and Mr. Lockyer retired from the Council ; the first
because he felt " that the opinion of the majority had diverged
considerably from his own on various occasions " ; Colonel Strange,
because he thought that certain members of the Council were
incompetent and that these exercised an undue influence ; and Mr.
Lockyer, because Mr. Proctor made repeated attacks on him in
" certain- obscure prints," and for this reason he did not wish to
sit at the Council table with him. The secession of these three
Members did not restore harmony, but the factious spirit had full
play in the selection of a recipient for the Gold Medal in the follow-
ing February. At the Council meeting in November it was
proposed by Professor Pritchard, who was strongly supported by
Dr. Huggins, that Mr. Lockyer, M. Janssen, and Professor Respighi
should have the medal jointly, in accordance with the Bye-law
passed in 1871 June. Mr. E. B. Denison (afterwards Sir Edmund
Beckett, Bart., and finally Lord Grimthorpe) proposed that Mr.
Proctor should have the medal for his contributions to astronomical
literature, especially his Charts of Stars and theories about their
distribution, and his papers on the Transit of Venus. Other
names were proposed as recipients, but the contest was mainly
between the supporters of the three solar observers first named,
and those of Mr. Proctor. Professor Pritchard withdrew the name
of Respighi before the discussion, but at a later stage when he
saw that there was much opposition to Mr. Lockyer he was not
allowed to withdraw the name of that gentleman, otherwise M.
Janssen would have got the medal. There was a decided opinion
among certain influential members of the Council that Mr. Proctor's
work, though very voluminous and painstaking, did not deserve
this high recognition, and it was eventually decided that the
Gold Medal should not be awarded in 1873. It seems possible
that Proctor had been proposed merely to set up a candidate in
opposition to Lockyer.
An early opportunity for further dissension arose in the election
of the Council in 1873 February, and on this occasion Colonel
Strange was the avowed aggressor. The Council, according to
custom, prepared a list of names to be submitted to the Society for
election. A few days before the Annual Meeting a circular was
issued to all the Fellows of the Society by Colonel Strange. In
this he called attention to the recent resignations, which were not
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 177
the result of any mutual understanding, but were " due to dissatis-
faction with the present composition of the Council." He said that
its members should be " competent for the work in hand, and
desirous of advancing it with single-minded earnestness." He
mentioned no names, but thought there would be little difficulty
in finding out to whom he alluded, and gave a long list of names,
from which a good choice of possible new members might be
made. A few days later (February 10), Colonel Strange issued a
balloting list in opposition to that of the Council, while the
President (Cayley) and the Secretaries (Dunkin and Proctor),
apparently without knowing of this rival list, sent out a reply to
Colonel Strange's circular. In this they merely pointed out that
his list of recommendations included some who had already served
on the Council or who did not wish to serve, while business con-
siderations forbade extensive changes at a time when the Council
had recently lost the services of two chief officers.
The proceedings at the Annual General Meeting on 1873
February 14, consequent on the issue of these circulars, are thus
reported in the Astronomical Register (p. 66) :
A desultory conversation then ensued (after the appointment
of the Scrutineers of the ballot), in which Professor Pritchard, Sir
G. B. Airy, and Mr. Bidder were prominent, arising from the fact
that Col. Strange had issued a circular to the Fellows expressing
dissatisfaction with the list of Officers proposed by the Council, and
afterwards had circulated an opposition list. ... A long and
stormy discussion ensued in a most crowded meeting, the principal
speakers being Mr. E. B. Denison, Q.C., Mr. Chambers, Mr. Ranyard,
Mr. Proctor, Col. Strange, Sir G. B. Airy, Dr. De la Rue, the Rev.
T. Wiltshire, Mr. Balfour Stewart, and Mr. Bidder. Col. Strange
was repeatedly challenged to substantiate his statements of the
incompetence of the persons objected to, and their combination
for party purposes, but contented himself by stating that it was
merely his own personal opinion, and that he had every respect
for the individuals in question. A resolution expressing regret
for Col. Strange's action having been carried, the ballot took place
and occupied nearly two hours before the result was ascertained.
The Officers and Council elected were those of the Council
list with one exception. The Report ends : "In consequence
of the anticipated length of meeting, the usual dinner did not
take place."
The above is a brief account of the proceedings at an Annual
General Meeting of a somewhat unusual character. That they
were wanting in dignity may be judged from a sentence in the
Astronomical Register for 1873 March. " The conduct of the
meeting was hardly creditable to the oldest scientific Society.
12
I 7 8 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
It was certainly a matter for regret that a learned and reverend
Professor holding office in the Society should have allowed his
feelings to get the better of his manners." Some recriminatory
letters which were sent to the Fellows of the Royal Astronomical
Society as sequel to these proceedings reveal the feeling that
underlay their action. The first of these * was signed by John
Browning, T. W. Burr, E. B. Denison, W. Noble, and R. A. Proctor,
and in it they affirmed that Colonel Strange's circular had been
issued with Mr. Lockyer's assistance, and implied that the attempt
to eject them (the signatories) from the Council was a retort for
the rejection of Colonel Strange's scheme for the establishment of
a Solar Physical Observatory. To this, Colonel Strange replied by
a letter, | in which he hinted that Mr. Proctor's name had been
proposed as recipient of the medal in November by a clique of his
personal friends on the Council, and for this reason he (Colonel
Strange) was justified in proposing a reform of that body. Two
further letters were sent to the Fellows, one by Mr. Proctor, the
other by several other Fellows. {
2. 1873-1874
The observation of the Transit of Venus across the sun's disc,
which was to happen in 1874 December, was the subject of some
discussion among astronomers in the year 1873, and as it led to an
incident in the history of our Society which reflected somewhat
upon its officers, it may be well to consider here the circumstances
relating to the phenomenon which caused the discussion.
The event has already been alluded to as a matter of contention
between Sir George Airy and Mr. Proctor, and several communica-
tions on the subject by the latter will be found in volume 33
of the Monthly Notices. To realise the point at issue it may be
useful to remind the reader that there are two distinct methods
of using the Transit of Venus for finding the sun's distance. In
one, Halley's method, two observers in the northern and southern
hemispheres respectively, note the whole time of duration of the
passage of Venus across the disc of the sun, and from the difference
of these times of duration, or in other words, from the difference
of length of the chords of the sun's disc described by Venus as seen
from the two stations the sun's distance is computed. The time
of duration is affected by the motion of the observer due to the
earth's rotation during the interval between ingress and egress of
the planet, which may be several hours. The increase or de-
crease of the duration due to this cause, which makes the de-
termination more accurate if it lengthens the difference of interval
* Astron. Register, 11, 93. f Ibid., p. 95. J Ibid., pp. 120 and 122.
ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 179
due to north or south position of the observer, is a factor to be
considered. Writing generally, the effect of the earth's rotation
is to shorten the duration of a transit because a place on the
hemisphere of the earth which is towards the sun moves lineally
in the direction opposite to that in which Venus moves, and
therefore hastens her motion across the disc, and for two observers
in the same hemisphere, the shortening is less for the one who is
nearer the pole, because his linear movement is less. But a case
to be specially considered is that of an observer in the Arctic or
Antarctic circle, according as the northern or southern pole of
the earth is towards the sun, who, though on the sunlit hemisphere,
is carried by the earth's rotation in the same direction as the planet.
To such an observer the duration of transit is lengthened, and at a
December transit, if the planet is south of the sun's centre, this
lengthening of the passage for a southern observer, which is already
greater than that for a northern, will be an advantage ; but if the
geocentric transit is north, its duration as seen by the southern
observer, which is less than that seen by the northern, will again be
lengthened, and this will make the difference of the observed
times less than it would otherwise have been, and hence it will be
disadvantageous to observe the phenomenon from a station
within the Antarctic circle, which will be beyond the pole, so to
speak, at mid-transit.
A transit will happen in December, if Venus is at inferior
conjunction and at the same time sufficiently near to the ascending
node of her orbit. A transit will happen in June if similar circum-
stances occur, the planet being then near the descending node ; in
general, transits happen in pairs, the individuals of a pair being
at the same time of the year and separated by an interval of
eight years.
At the first of a pair of December transits, Venus will have just
passed the ascending node, and since the planet is then in north
latitude the geocentric transit will be above the centre of the
sun's disc. It will be found from consideration of the length of
the synodic period of Venus, and her sidereal period, that the second
transit of the pair at either node happens before her passage
through the node, and the chord of geocentric transit will in this case
be south of the centre of the disc. The southern observer in each
case sees the planet displaced northward, but, as explained above,
the advantage that can be gained by an observer in the Antarctic
circle the southern pole of the earth being in the sunlit hemisphere
in December cannot be maintained at the first of a pair of transits,
since it lengthens the duration of the shorter transit, and hence
shortens the difference. At the second of a pair of December
transits, omitting the consequences of the earth's rotation, the
i8o HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
southern observer would see a longer transit than the northern be-
cause of his position, and if he were in the Antarctic circle the rotation
of the earth would increase the duration as seen by him, and the
addition would be to the advantage of the determination. This
has led to the view that Halley's method is not specially suitable
for the first of a pair of December transits (and is similarly unsuit-
able for the first of a pair at the Descending Node in June). In
his paper read before the Society in 1868 December " On the
preparatory arrangements which will be necessary for efficient
observation of the Transits of Venus in the years 1874 and 1882,"
Sir George Airy said " that for reasons he had given in earlier papers
(1857 May and 1864 June) the method by observation of the inter-
val in time between ingress and egress at each of two stations
at least, on nearly opposite parts of the earth (on which method,
exclusively, reliance was placed in the treatment of the observa-
tions of the transit of Venus in 1769) fails totally for the transit of
1874, and is embarrassed in 1882 with the difficulty of finding a
proper station on the almost unknown southern continent." He
therefore relied for the 1874 transit at least on the method known
as Delisle's, the principle of that method being that whereas at
some stations the ingress is seen accelerated, compared with geo-
centric ingress, at others, differing from the first in longitude, it is
retarded, and similarly for the egress. The determination there-
fore depends on comparison of the time of either phase as seen
from two stations, the difference of longitude of which must be
precisely determined, the record being made in local time.
For the transit of 1874, Airy selected the neighbourhood of
Honolulu, Rodriguez or Mauritius, Auckland Islands or New
Zealand, and Alexandria ; Kerguelen's Island and Crozet's Island
were mentioned as being favourable so far as astronomical circum-
stances were concerned, but objections were raised to these by
the naval authorities who were consulted. In 1869 March, Mr.
Proctor brought before the Society reasons to show that the
method of duration of transit, or Halley's method, was not inapplic-
able to the transit of 1874, because as Venus was far north of the
sun's centre and the chord therefore short, the shortening by
parallax from a southern station would be so great that this would
outweigh considerations of an adverse kind. He suggested
Enderby Land (66 south latitude, longitude 50 E.) as a suitable
station, but failing this that either Kerguelen's or Crozet's Island
would be sufficiently suitable. In the same communication he
also proposed alternative stations to those chosen by the Astro-
nomer Royal for the observations by Delisle's method. Crozet's
Island and Kerguelen's Land, with some other places, being
considered suitable also for this method.
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 181
Mr. Proctor followed this up by another paper to be found in
the Monthly Notices for June 1869,* but the subject dropped as a
matter of controversy in the Society until the year 1873. A sum
of 10,500 had been sanctioned by the Treasury in 1869 May,
and voted by the House of Commons at the end of the Parliamentary
session of that year to defray the expenses of providing instruments
and making observations of the transit, and the Astronomer Royal
proceeded with the preparation for the expeditions. A further
sum of 5000 was added for photography, which was undertaken
at the instigation of Mr. De la Rue, the Board of Visitors of the
Royal Observatory, at their meeting of 1871 June 3, having passed
a resolution that a grant of 5000 ought to be made to cover the
cost of photographic apparatus and observations at all the
stations. Sir George Airy expressed himself guardedly as to hope
of success.
There was evidently a feeling in some quarters antagonistic
to the official scheme. An article, apparently by Mr. Proctor, was
published in the Spectator of 1873 February 8 on the subject,
and on February 13, the day before the Annual General Meeting
of our Society, when the stormy scene already mentioned happened,
another appeared in The Times, of which Mr. Becket Denison was
the avowed author, stating plainly the history of the matter
and urging that sufficient attention had not been given to Mr.
Proctor's papers and suggestions in planning the scheme of the
observations. Mr. Proctor wrote a letter to The Times of February
20, in which he stated definitely the principal alterations that he
proposed in Sir George Airy's plan. First, that one of the Antarc-
tic stations it was proposed to utilise in 1882 should also be occupied
in 1874, Possession Island, near Victoria Land, being the place
indicated ; secondly, that the region of northern India for observ-
ing the " retarded egress " of Venus had been completely overlooked
in the Astronomer Royal's researches ; thirdly, that the station
selected for observing the " accelerated egress " was unfortunate
in many respects, especially as Possession Island, which is suitable
for observing the transit by Halley's method, is also very suitable
for observing the phase referred to ; and lastly, that as Lord
Lindsay was equipping an expedition to observe at Mauritius, it
was not necessary for a Government expedition to go to Rodriguez,
which was so near, but that the cost of this might be applied in
providing for the Antarctic station. The Board of Admiralty
sent these papers to Sir George Airy for his opinion, and at their
Lordships' request his reply was communicated to our Society,
and is printed in the Monthly Notices of 1873 March. The Astro-
* From the Astronomical Register it appears that this was read at the May
meeting.
182 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
nomer Royal pointed out that whereas Halley's method may have
had the advantage over Delisle's at a time when it was not possible
to determine longitude with great accuracy, this was not the case
at the present time, and after comparison of probable errors of
different combinations and consideration of local circumstances,
he declined to recommend that an expedition be sent to Enderby
Land (on the Antarctic circle in about the same longitude as Ker-
guelen) on account of the severities the expedition would have
to undergo, or to any station in the Antarctic Continent. He did
not think it necessary to give up a selected station because a
privately organised expedition would be near, and he was en-
deavouring to establish a photographic station in India. On 1873
March 22 a statement of the general plan was made in the House
of Commons. Mr. Proctor's comments on the Astronomer Royal's
reply are to be found in the same issue (March) of the Monthly
Notices. He pointed out further, that although the two naval
authorities had (in 1868) considered it quite possible to occupy
Possession Island for the necessary length of time for the transit
of 1882, now that he proposed it for the transit of 1874 the opinions
they then expressed were lightly regarded. He also contributed
two other long papers on the general subject to the same number,
and another in April, with the significant title " Note on the
Approaching Transit of Venus, with special reference to the
probability of absolute failure through the want of a due
number of southern stations." He asserted that at Kerguelen
Island, which had been selected, bad weather was almost a
certainty, and that the three other chosen southern stations
were very inferior. Two short papers by him on the transit,
which it is not necessary to describe, appeared in the May
number.
At the meeting in June it was announced from the Chair that
at the suggestion of the Board of Visitors, the Astronomer Royal
had applied to Government for the means of organising parties
of observers in the Southern Ocean, with the view of finding
additional localities in the sub-Antarctic regions for observing the
whole duration of the Transit of Venus. The precise effect of this
seems to have been that the Challenger was to report on Heard or
MacDonald's Island, about 300 miles south of Kerguelen's Island
(longitude 70 E.), as a place of observation, whereas Mr. Proctor
urged that there were several islands in the ocean south of New
Zealand which would supply suitable stations, or that a landing
might be made on the Antarctic Continent. A vigorous warfare
of words was carried on in The Times on the subject between
Admiral Richards, the Hydrographer, Mr. Denison, Mr. Proctor,
and the author of an article in the Edinburgh Review. The line
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 183
taken by the Hydrographer will be learned from the following
extract from a letter by him (see Ast. Reg., vol. 11, p. 224) :
Enthusiasts no doubt there are who, however accomplished
they may be as astronomers, are wanting and cannot but be deficient
on many subjects which it is as necessary to take into account as
astronomy in a question of this kind ; and hence we are told to
send to the Antarctic Continent and to visit a variety of small
rocky islets interspersed over the Southern Ocean at distances
from each other varying from 1000 to nearly 4000 miles, many of
which are actual myths, while on those which do exist it is certain
that there is no anchorage for a ship, and that even landing would
be generally impossible.
In the supplementary number of the Monthly Notices, Mr.
Proctor published a chart of the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic
regions which are suitable for observing the Transit of Venus
in 1874, and in the accompanying letterpress wrote the following
paragraph :
The chart requires no explanation beyond perhaps the remark
that the islands in the less-known regions have been taken from
ordinary atlases (after comparison of several), in preference to the
Admiralty charts ; because, after certain withdrawals from opinions
expressed in December 1868, one naturally feels doubtful about
Admiralty statements which would appear to be variable according
to official requirements. It did not seem well to insert any island,
or group of islands, in the chart with some such note as " Here, if
convenient to those in authority, there is an island," or " this group
of islands can be regarded as a reality or a myth as may be required,"
and so on.
Mr. Proctor, it will be remembered, was Secretary of the
Society at this time and, temporarily, Editor of its publications,
because Professor Cayley, who was the actual Editor, was President
of the Society. The supplementary number was therefore com-
pletely under his control,* as this, unlike others, does not receive
the direct sanction of the Council, and it was naturally considered
that he had made unworthy use of the opportunity thus presented
to him.
Mr. Proctor left England in October to deliver a course of
lectures in America, and at the November Meeting of the Council
a letter was read from him resigning the Secretaryship of the
Society. Mr. Ranyard was chosen to fill the office pro tern., and
* A long paper by Mr. Proctor, " Statement of Views respecting the
Sidereal Universe," illustrated by folding plates, and another by Mr. Waters,
similarly illustrated, appeared in the same number. He thought it necessary
to say that none of these charts had been engraved at the expense of the
Society.
184 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
Mr. Dunkin offered to undertake the duties of Editor until after
the next Annual General Meeting. At this meeting also a letter
was received from the Hydrographer, Admiral Richards, com-
plaining of the paragraph in Mr. Proctor's paper in the supple-
mental y number. The Council expressed their regret in a letter
to Admiral Richards, that the Editor should have so misused his
office, and in the next issue of the Monthly Notices (1873 November)
the following note was inserted by special order of the Council :
The attention of the Council has been directed to certain
remarks made by their late Editor in paragraph 2, page 533 of
the supplementary number, volume xxxiii. of the Monthly Notices.
The Council have entered on their Minutes a resolution expressing
their strong disapprobation of the paragraph referred to.
Mr. Proctor sent a letter from New York in December, expressing
regret for the circumstances which led to the appearance of his
paper on the transit in the supplementary number, and saying
that if he had known earlier of the arrangements described by Sir
George Airy at the November meeting, * the paper would not have
appeared, and that he had not definitely proposed the occupation
of any specified southern stations, but merely a search for such
stations in due time. This was read as a paper at the meeting of
the Society in 1874 January. A letter from him in The Times
of February 6, dated from New York, January 16, criticising the
Council's note in the November number, spoke of his paragraph
in the supplementary number as " a carelessly worded jest." Mr.
Proctor attended the meeting on 1874 May 8, and read an explana-
tion, Sir George Airy, as Vice-President, being in the Chair, f
Mr. Proctor contributed occasional papers in later years, and
was sometimes present at the meetings, but did not take an active
part in the affairs of the Society, being engaged in writing and
lecturing at home and abroad.
For the actual observation of the transit, the Astronomer Royal
collected a body of observers from the naval and military services,
with some civilians, who received instruction at the Royal Obser-
vatory in the practical details of observation and photography,
several of whom became Fellows of the Society. The observing
parties started to take up their stations in the early part of the
* At this meeting the Astronomer Royal gave an account of the prepara-
tions for observation of the Transit in which he said that a photographic
station was to be established in the north of India, and that he had carefully
considered the propriety of establishing an additional station on Kerguelen
Island or on the Macdonald or Heard Islands, on the suitability of which the
Challenger was to report.
t Mr. Proctor's explanation or apology was not received as a paper, but
was printed as a fly-leaf, with a footnote, "To be added to Vol. xxxiii."
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 185
summer of 1874, that for Egypt being naturally somewhat later.
When the observers returned after the transit they were all placed
under the superintendence of Captain G. L. Tupman, R.M.A.,
who had been leader of the expedition to the Sandwich Islands,
to complete their share of the reductions or the measurement of
photographs. The examination and final reduction was entrusted
to Captain Tupman.
3. 1874-1875
At the February meeting in 1874, Professor Adams was elected
President in place of Professor Cayley, and Mr. Cowper Ranyard
to the office of Secretary that he had held pro tern., Mr. Dunkin
being his colleague. The Gold Medal of the Society was awarded
to Professor Simon Newcomb, for his researches on the orbits of
Neptune and Uranus.
In volume 35 of the Monthly Notices (1874 November to
1875 June) there are many papers, prospective and retrospective,
relating to the Transit of Venus. At the November meeting the
Astronomer Royal gave a long account of the Reports he had
received from the British expeditions as to their journeys and
establishment at their stations, speaking specially of the observa-
tions for the determinations of longitude. He remarked that the
general arrangement of stations was precisely as it had been from
the beginning, although in some districts there had been expan-
sions of the original plan tending to multiply the places of observa-
tions, these now being Egypt, the Sandwich Islands, the Island
of Rodriguez, New Zealand, Kerguelen, the last of which was an
addition to the original scheme. Information that the observing
parties had arrived at these places had been received from all
except the last-named, and at the meeting in December, Sir George
Airy was able to announce that successful observations had been
made from Egypt and India, and by various expeditions sent by
foreign countries, but information had not been received from the
other British stations.
It seemed fitting that the year of the Transit of Venus should
be marked by the erection of a memorial to Jeremiah Horrocks,
of Hoole, in Lancashire, who had predicted and observed the
Transit of Venus of the year 1639. A petition was presented to
Dean Stanley and the Chapter of Westminster, signed by the
Astronomer Royal, the President, and several prominent Fellows
of the Royal Astronomical Society, requesting permission to place
in Westminster Abbey a tablet or some other memorial of Jeremiah
Horrocks. The subject was brought to the notice of the Fellows
of the Society at the June meeting, and a request for subscriptions,
which it was thought well to limit to sums not exceeding a guinea,
186 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
was made and responded to. Formal consent having been given
by the Chapter, on the advice of Dean Stanley, who interested him-
self greatly in the matter, a block of marble with a curved surface
was added to the monument of Conduitt, the relation of Newton,
which stands on the north side of the west door of the Abbey,
and on this an inscription was cut recording Horrocks' achieve-
ments. The memorial stone actually forms part of the Conduitt
monument. The whole sum raised by subscription was 89, i6s.,
of which 51, is. was expended on the memorial, including a fee
of 25 paid to the Chapter. The balance was handed to the
Council of the Society, and, with an added sum, was invested, the
interest to be devoted to the purchase of books for the Library ;
and this money now figures in the annual accounts as the Horrocks
Fund, together with the interest on a sum of 500 bequeathed
by the Rev. Charles Tumor in 1853 for a similar purpose.
Apart from the Transit of Venus, Coggia's Comet was the astro-
nomical event of this year. This comet was discovered by M.
Coggia, at Marseilles, on April 17, and became a splendid naked-
eye object in the northern sky in June and July. It was observed
very completely with the spectroscope by Huggins, Lockyer,
and others, while drawings of the comet were made by various
observers and published in the Monthly Notices, 35, 36.
On 1874 November 13 the Society met for the first time in
the rooms it now occupies. In 1868 and the years following,
Burlington House was altered and enlarged by the addition of
the east and west wings, to provide suitable quarters for those
learned Societies who still occupied rooms in Somerset House,
which were required for other purposes. Mr. Charles Barry was
the Architect, and the interiors were arranged to suit the require-
ments of the Societies. The western wing, the southern portion
of which was allotted to our Society, was completed in the first
half of 1874, and the removal of the Library and other property
of the Society was effected, principally under the direction of Mr.
Dunkin, between the June and November meetings.
Between the November and December meetings the Society
lost by death the valuable service of their Assistant Secretary,
Mr. John Williams. Mr. Williams had been a Member of the
Mathematical Society, and became a Fellow of the Royal Astro-
nomical Society when the two were incorporated. On the death
of Mr. Harris, Assistant Secretary, in 1846 April, Mr. Williams
was chosen to succeed him, and therefore ceased to be a Fellow.
He was a student of science of many kinds, but the chief work
of his early life was the study of Egyptian hieroglyphics. From
this he turned to Chinese, and attained great fame for his know-
ledge of that language. Several papers on the astronomy of the
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 187
Chinese will be found in the Monthly Notices, and in 1871 he pub-
lished a book on Observations of Comets, from B.C. 611 to A.D. 1640,
extracted from the Chinese annals, which was in no way a
publication of the Society, but was privately printed by the author.
Mr. Williams could not be persuaded to resign his post, even when
he might well have done so, on the Society's removal to Burlington
House, but the sudden death of his wife on November 10, after a
union of fifty-two years, brought on symptoms of heart disease,
and he died after much suffering, 1874 December 3, in his seventy-
eighth year.
The business of the Society was carried on for a time by Mr.
Edwin Dunkin, junior, son of the Secretary, and advertisements
were inserted in several papers which brought twenty-eight
applications. This number was reduced to five, and finally
Mr. William Henry Wesley was appointed, and entered on his
duties soon after the Annual Meeting. Referring for further
particulars to the Obituary Notice in M.N., 83, we shall
only mention here that Mr. Wesley was born in Derbyshire,
1841 August 23, and died in his rooms at Burlington House,
1922 October 17. He came to London in 1855 and was
apprenticed to an engraver. From 1862 he did a great many
drawings for Huxley, Herbert Spencer, Richard Owen, and other
scientific men. He was persuaded by Mr. Ranyard to apply for
the post of our Assistant Secretary, and when he had entered on
his duties he threw himself into his work with great devotion and
became a valuable official, to whom both the Society generally
and individual Fellows owe a debt which can never be forgotten.
His great artistic skill rendered considerable service to astronomy
by his beautiful drawings of the corona from photographs of
many eclipses and his carefully engraved charts of the Milky
Way. It is a satisfaction to his many friends to remember that
Wesley had the pleasure to view a total eclipse of the sun at the
Algiers Observatory on 1900 May 28.
Reference to the Annual Accounts in the February numbers
of the Monthly Notices shows that Mr. Wesley, in addition to
comfortable lodgings, received a salary on appointment of 150
per year, which was increased to 225 by resolution of Council
on 1879 November 14, and later to 250. From 1860 to 1881 a
sum of 60 yearly was paid to Professor Cayley, who succeeded
Professor Grant as Editor of the Society's publications.
At the Annual General Meeting in 1875 February the Gold
Medal was awarded to Professor D' Arrest, Director of the Observa-
tory of Copenhagen, for his observations of nebulae. The reading
of the Report at this meeting disclosed an incident which provoked
some comment, for it appeared that instruments had been lent to
188 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
the Eclipse Committee of the British Association for observation
of the eclipse of 1871, and that the observing party in Australia
had presented some instruments to Mr. Ellery, Director of the
Melbourne Observatory, among them being three modern instru-
ments of small value belonging to the Society. But the matter
had already been dealt with by the Council, and the British
Association naturally made restitution by procuring similar
instruments and handing these to the Society.
The activity of the Society during the first five years of the
decade may be judged from the size of the volumes of the Monthly
Notices. Volume 30, 1869 November to 1870 June, contains
226 pages ; volume 35, 1874 November to 1875 June, 410,
whilst two of the intermediate volumes, 33 and 34, have
respectively 582 and 492. The extent and number of the notes
on the progress of Astronomy in the February number of the
Monthly Notices may perhaps be an index of the taste and
energy of the Secretaries rather than an actual record of progress ;
but it is to be remarked that these notes in 1870 occupied only 15
pages, whilst in 1875 they filled 38, excluding the Reports of the
Transit of Venus, but including a long Report on Meteoric Astro-
nomy. The state of amateur Astronomy generally is to be judged
from the reports from the private observatories that are to be
found in the February numbers. Some of these were falling out
of the ranks of active workers. Mr. Lassell had re-erected his
2-foot reflector at Maidenhead after his return from Malta, but
did little with it after 1870. Mr. De la Rue's Observatory at
Cranford, Middlesex, ceased to exist in 1873, when it was dismantled,
and the large reflecting telescope and other instruments presented
to the University of Oxford. Mr. Carrington had no active
connection with the Society after 1865, but had built a new
Observatory at Churt, near Farnham, in Surrey, of a somewhat
unusual kind, described in volume 30 of the Monthly Notices^
which he did not apply to any particular purpose. The places
of these older astronomers were filled by several new workers in
the science. Mr. Huggins's Observatory at Tulse Hill was growing
in value and importance. Mr. Lockyer had established an Observa-
tory, with spectroscopic laboratory attached, in the neighbourhood
of St. John's Wood, in north-west London, the principal instru-
ments being a 6-inch refractor by Cooke, and a seven prism spectro-
scope, the latter being replaced in 1873 by a speculum metal
diffraction-grating by Rutherfurd, and with these he was observ-
ing the chromosphere and prominences and sun-spots, and doing
necessary comparison laboratory work on the spectra of metals.
He communicated the results to the Royal Society, but a full
report of the work done at his Observatory is to be found in the
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 189
Monthly Notices for 1874 February. Lord Lindsay's well-equipped
Observatory at Dun Echt, of which Mr. David Gill was in charge
till 1876, was practically completed in 1873, and description of the
instruments, and of the work done with them, will be found in the
February number of the Monthly Notices of 1873 and subsequent
years. The equipment of the Temple Observatory, founded at
Rugby School about 1872 in memory of a former headmaster,
consisted of an 8J-inch equatorial by Alvan Clark, and a 1 2-inch
reflector by With, which were used largely for educational purposes,
but also by Mr. G. M. Seabroke for solar spectroscopic work, and
by Mr. J. M. Wilson for observations of double stars. An Observa-
tory was established by Mr. Edward Crossley at Bermerside,
Halifax, Yorks, where many observations of double stars were
made in the course of years.
Colonel Tomline set up an Observatory at Orwell Park, Ipswich,
in 1874, the principal instrument being an equatorially mounted
refractor of 10 inches aperture, which was devoted to cometary
work. Mr. George Knott transferred his home and Observatory,
in 1873, from Woodcroft, Cuckfield, Sussex, where he had observed
double stars and variable stars since 1859, to another place in the
neighbourhood, but this cannot be called a new Observatory.
The Observatory at Birr Castle, Parsonstown, was in active
work, Lord Rosse (fourth Earl) being engaged on an investiga-
tion with the 3-foot reflector of the heat radiated by the moon,
whilst the 6-foot reflector was used for examining nebulae and
for making drawings of Jupiter. Lord Rosse's researches on
lunar heat were communicated to the Royal Society and published
in Philosophical Transactions, 1873. At Mr. Barclay's private
Observatory at Leyton, Essex, established by him in 1854, it was
chiefly double stars which were observed. The Observatory of
Mr. George Bishop, junior, that had been removed from Regent's
Park to Twickenham on the death of Mr. Bishop, senior, in 1861,
was closed in 1876. Mr. R. S. Newall's 25-inch telescope, now at
Cambridge Observatory, was completed and set up at Gateshead
about 1871. A telescope with object-glass of 21 J inches aperture
made by Mr. J. Buckingham, which had been exhibited in the
Great Exhibition of 1862, was transferred by him from Walworth
to a well-equipped Observatory at East Dulwich, London, S.E.,
and used for occasional planetary and other observations.*
Mr. E. J. Cooper, who had established a fully equipped Obser-
vatory at Markree Castle, County Sligo, in 1831, died in 1863,!
and was succeeded in the estate by his nephew, Colonel E. H.
Cooper. The nephew had not the same active interest in Astro-
* This telescope is now at the City Observatory, Calton Hill, Edinburgh,
f The date is incorrectly given as 1872 in Monthly Notices, 63, 197.
HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
nomy as his uncle, but allowed the telescopes to lie idle until 1874,
when he secured the services of Dr. W. Doberck. The Observatory
of Mr. Charles Leeson Prince, at Crowborough, where he had an
historic telescope with object-glass made by Tulley of 6-8 inches
aperture, should also be mentioned.
A Government expedition was arranged by the Eclipse Com-
mittee of the Royal Society to observe the total solar eclipse of
1875 April 6, a sum of 1000 being granted for the purpose and
aid given in other ways. The duration of totality was consider-
able in the Indian Ocean and in the neighbourhood of Siam.
Stations in one of the Nicobar Islands and in Siam were occupied,
but the weather was very unfavourable. According to the pro-
gramme laid down by the Eclipse Committee an attempt was to
have been made during totality at the Nicobar Station to register
photographically the spectra given by the different layers of the
chromosphere and coronal atmosphere by the aid of spectroscopes
and prismatic cameras used in conjunction with telescopes. Clouds
entirely prevented any results of this kind being obtained. Results
were obtained only at Siam (by a party led by Dr. Schuster),
where several ordinary photographs of the corona were secured
with different times of exposure.
4. 1876-1878
At the Annual General Meeting of February 1876, Dr. William
Huggins was elected President, and Lord Lindsay took his place
as Foreign Secretary. Mr. E. B. Knobel, who has sat at the
Council Table almost continuously until the present date, was
for the first time on the Council. The Report disclosed the fact
that the total number of Associates and Fellows of the Society
at the end of the previous year exceeded 600 for the first time,
566 of them being Fellows, and of these seven had been members
of the old Mathematical Society. In connection with the instru-
ments a curious and somewhat unsatisfactory incident was reported.
A 2 1 -inch telescope of the Sheepshanks collection had been lent to
the Rev. Jonathan Cape, and after his death his goods were sold
by auction, and two astronomical telescopes were included in the
sale, one of these being the property of the Society. This, however,
was not sold, but was lost in some way, and the Society were not
able to recover it. The incident led to an inquiry, and it appeared
that there were other instruments formerly in the possession
of the Society that could not be satisfactorily accounted for.
New regulations were made in consequence, that loans should
be for one year only, unless renewal is granted on fresh application.
The Gold Medal of the Society was awarded in 1876 to M. Le
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 191
Verrier for his theories of the four great planets, Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus, and Neptune, and for his tables of Jupiter and Saturn
founded thereon. The address was, very appropriately, delivered
by Professor J. C. Adams, the President, but M. Le Verrier, who
was in temporary ill-health, was not present.
The elections of Officers and Council of the Society in the
succeeding years were marked by the exhibition of considerable
factious spirit. It is unnecessary to give a detailed account of
these disputes ; the following will suffice :
In the list prepared by the Council of officers proposed for
election in 1877 February, Captain Abney was proposed as
Secretary, with Mr. J. W. L. Glaisher, in the places of Mr.
Dunkin and Mr. Ranyard, the former of whom was retiring by
his own desire. Abney at this time held a paid post in connec-
tion with the Science and Art Department at South Kensington,
as Inspector of Local Schools ; and South Kensington and all its
connections were anathema to the party in the Council who were
considered the opposition. An alternative balloting list was issued,
in which (without his knowledge) Mr. W. H. M. Christie and Mr.
Ranyard were proposed as Secretaries. On the ballot being taken
it was found that Glaisher and Ranyard were the elected Secretaries,
and that Abney was not chosen in any capacity. The circum-
stances of his rejection were peculiar. Some Fellows at the
meeting voted for him as a member of Council and not as Secretary,
and though he received 49 votes for the Secretaryship, and 16 as
member of Council, he was considered not to be elected a member
of the governing body, but had to give way to Captain Noble,
for whom only 47 votes were cast. The anomaly caused consider-
able comment, and some attempt was made to amend the Bye-laws
to prevent its recurrence, by declaring that votes given for an
office should count as votes for the Council.
A Special General Meeting was held after the ordinary meeting
in 1877 June, at which this and some other alterations in the
Bye-Laws were to be considered. But as a clear month's notice
had not been given, and the Fellows were therefore unable to
propose amendments, it was decided after a somewhat stormy
discussion to defer the matter till the next Annual Meeting. When
this came round the Council withdrew the proposed alteration,
and no such amendment of the Bye-Laws has ever been made.
But it has since then been assumed, and agreed by vote in 1878
February, that votes for an office should be taken as votes for a
seat on the Council.
In the Annual Report of the Council in 1877 February it was
announced that Mr. R. C. Carrington had bequeathed to the
Society the sum of 2000 Consolidated Annuities. Also that
192 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
200 had been received from the trustees of the estate of Mr.
T. C. Janson, formerly a Fellow of the Society, who died in 1863.
This legacy, which became payable on the death of his widow,
had, in conformity with the wishes of the testator, been added to
the Lee Fund for the relief of widows and orphans of deceased
Fellows.* It was also announced that the Society had received
after the death of Miss Anne Sheepshanks, an Honorary Member,
who died in 1876, a gift of 192 volumes which had formed a portion
of the library of her brother, the Rev. Richard Sheepshanks.
Her chief claim to the gratitude of astronomers is, however, founded
on her pecuniary beneficence to science, for it was at her expense
that the exhibition at Cambridge bearing the name of Sheepshanks
was founded, and that the meridian circle now in use at the Cam-
bridge Observatory was provided. On the death of her brother,
as a record of her admiration and affection for him and his work,
she transferred 10,000 Consols to the Master, Fellows, and Scholars
of Trinity College, Cambridge, the interest of which was to be
devoted to the advancement of astronomical and kindred sciences
in the University. One-sixth of the sum supplies the income of
the Sheepshanks Exhibition, the remaining five-sixths is reserved
for purposes connected with the Cambridge Observatory, either
in payment of stipends or in purchase of instruments. In 1860
a further sum of 2000 was placed by Miss Sheepshanks in the
hands of Mr. Airy, for providing a new transit-circle for Cambridge
Observatory, and the instrument made by the firm of Troughton
& Simms was mounted in 1870.
During the year 1876 the Society came into possession of several
series of original sun-spot records in various ways. First, the
original drawings of spots and manuscript books of observations
made by Carrington between the years 1853 and 1871 were presented
to the Society by Lord Lindsay. They had been sold by public
auction and were bid for on behalf of the Society, but were pur-
chased by a bookseller, from whom Lord Lindsay bought them.
Secondly, the Rev. Frederick Hewlett presented to the Society
five volumes of sun-spot drawings made by him between 1869
and 1876 ; and thirdly, the widow of Professor Selwyn gave to
the Society a series of paper prints from the solar negatives
taken at Ely under the superintendence of the Professor in
the years 1863-73. The gift of Carrington's MSS. led to the
insertion in the Monthly Notices for 1876 March of a short
list of the sun-spot manuscripts in the possession of the Society,
* A further sura of 500 came into the possession of the Society in 1877
under the will of Mr. C. Lambert, whose name appears in the list of deceased
Fellows in 1878, but of whom no biography is given. He left a sum of money
to be distributed among scientific societies, and of this the Royal Astronomical
received the amount named.
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 193
which go back in date to the year 1819, and to the publication
(in May) of an account of how the Schwabe drawings were
acquired by the Society. In the year 1864, Messrs. De la Rue
and Balfour Stewart wrote to Schwabe to request that he
would allow his original manuscripts to be sent to England.
Schwabe was loth to part with them, but consented to do so on
the condition that they should be sent back to him *' at any time
that I should be desirous of looking into them during the short
time of life still left to me. I do not think that I shall have an
occasion to avail myself of the permission asked for ; but permit
me kindly to believe that it is in my power to do so. After my
death you may consider the whole of the observations as the
property of the Royal Astronomical Society."
Thirty-nine volumes of Schwabe's diaries (1825-67) were
therefore sent to the Kew Observatory, and were transferred to the
library at Burlington House in 1880. Mention of the subject
of sun-spots recalls the fact that the Rev. Temple Chevallier pre-
sented to the Society in 1851 his valuable series of observations
of spots made at Durham Observatory, bound in two volumes,
which are now in the library. The writer of the obituary notice
of Canon Chevallier remarked that he was the first to institute
in England the regular continuous observation of the solar spots,
and that his methods were afterwards adopted by Mr. Carrington,
who had been an Assistant at Durham under him. These state-
ments were contradicted by Carrington in a note in the Monthly
Notices (34, 250), in which he pointed out that Harriot (1610-13)
was the first English sun-spot observer, and that his (Carrington's)
methods were quite independent of any that had been hitherto
used.
The planet Mars was an object of interest for more than one
reason in the year 1877. It was in opposition on September 6,
and nearest the earth on September 9, the distance being 0-377
in astronomical units, which was an unusually close approach,
though not the closest possible, for the distance had been only
'373 at the opposition in 1845, as it will be again in 1924, these
being the two minimum distances during the two centuries 1800-
2000. The opportunity was made use of by Mr. David Gill for the
determination of the solar parallax, as we shall presently relate,
and at this apparition of the planet its two satellites were dis-
covered by Asaph Hall.
Another incident of the year 1877 was the search for the sup-
posed intra-mercurial planet (Vulcan) at the instigation of M. Le
Verrier. It had happened not infrequently that a spot or some other
marking had been seen on the sun, which the observer assumed
might have been a planet whose orbit was within that of Mercury.
13
194 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
Though it was clear that in some cases the appearance was merely
that of a sun-spot, five such observations made respectively in the
years 1802, 1839, 1849, 1859, and 1862 were thought by Le Verrier
to have represented passages of a single planet across the sun's
disc, and he deduced from the observations the elements of the
orbit of a planet which would, if it actually existed, be in transit
on 1877 March 21, 22, or 23. Mr. Hind supported this by showing
that a sixth observation that made by Stark on 1819 October 9,
was also consistent with the same orbit. M. Le Verrier sent a
letter to our Society inviting their co-operation in testing the
predictions by observation, and the Astronomer Royal, in con-
sequence, sent telegrams to observatories in India, Australia,
New Zealand, and North and South America, with a view to
keeping a continuous watch on the sun on these days, photographic
if possible, and he made a statement on the matter at the meeting
on March 9. The total failure of the observations both in the
opposite hemisphere and in our own, renders it certain that
no such object crossed the sun's disc at the predicted time. The
Rev. Stephen Perry at Stonyhurst and Mr. Rand Capron at Guild-
ford kept careful and continuous watch during the three days, the
weather being very favourable at both places, but saw no trace
of the object they were seeking.
The observation of Mars, for determination of the solar parallax,
by Mr. David Gill, from the Island of Ascension, at its opposition
in 1877, was an important event of this session, and though the
story and the connection of the Society with the undertaking
are briefly told by Gill in his autobiography in the History of the
Cape Observatory, it may be not out of place to give here a sketch
of the incident and others in the early career of this famous
astronomer, who had recently begun his association with the
Society.
In 1872, Lord Lindsay, the only son of the Earl of Crawford
and Balcarres, established an Observatory at the family seat at
Dun Echt, of which he put Gill in charge. For observation of the
Transit of Venus in 1874, Lord Lindsay organised an expedition
to the Island of Mauritius at his own expense, the greater part of
the arrangements and work, which involved the determination
of the longitude of Mauritius, being assigned to Gill. The observa-
tions of Venus in Transit were made by heliometer, and it was
proposed to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by having
the instrument in position at Mauritius, to make observations of
the planet Juno, which was in opposition on 1874 November 5,
for determination of the solar parallax. Owing to unforeseen
delay in the journey the first observation of the planet was not made
until November 12, but sufficient observations were obtained to
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 195
secure a result which proved to be 8"-77o"-04i. On his journey
home, at the request of the Chief of the Military Staff of the Khedive
at Cairo, and with the consent of Lord Lindsay, he measured a
base line near the great pyramid in connection with the projected
survey of Egypt, and on his return to Dun Echt he was occupied
during the years 1875 and 1876 in collecting and reducing some
of the astronomical results of the expedition.
But in 1876, Gill resigned his position at Dun Echt, and,
probably induced by his experience in the observation of Juno,
determined to make similar observations of Mars at this opposition
in 1877, when the geometrical conditions were exceptionally
favourable. Observations would be made most suitably from a
station near the Equator. He applied to Lord Lindsay for the
loan of the heliometer provided that he could otherwise obtain the
financial means for the expedition, and this was readily granted.
In the autumn of 1876 he asked the Government Grant Committee
of the Royal Society for a sum of 500 to enable him to carry out
his scheme from St. Helena or the Island of Ascension, under-
taking to defray any costs which might exceed 500 at his own
charge. The Committee did not feel justified in granting so
large a sum for one object, especially as they had many applica-
tions for other purposes, but recommended that the amount should
be provided independently from Government funds. Feeling
some uncertainty as to the success of this proposed course, and to
present undue delay, Gill applied to the Council of our Society,
who received his request very sympathetically. At the ordinary
meeting of the Society on March 9, the Astronomer Royal brought
the matter to the notice of the Fellows, urging the necessity of
the observations and suggesting that the sum might be provided
by a subscribed fund, to which he himself was prepared to contri-
bute 20.
Dr. De la Rue made the suggestion that the money bequeathed
by Mr. Carrington might be used for the purpose ; but failing
that, he generously offered to subscribe 100. Finally, the requisite
sum of 500 was voted by the Council from the Society's funds
on the understanding that 250 would be repaid to the Society
on the joint security of Lord Lindsay, Dr. De la Rue, and Mr.
Spottiswoode, if that sum were not obtained from some other
source. In 1878, however, this sum of 250 was provided from
the Government Grant Fund of the Royal Society, and the accept-
ance of the generous offer of these gentlemen and others was not
necessary.*
* By his will Sir David Gill, who died 1914 January 14, left the sum of
250 to the Society " in grateful remembrance of a like sum paid out of the
funds of the Society in aid of my expedition to Ascension."
196 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
The preparations for the expedition were attended by an
incident almost tragic. At the meeting in May, Lord Lindsay
exhibited this heliometer that he had put at the disposal of Mr.
Gill for the observations of the coming opposition of Mars, and in
preparation for the exhibition the instrument was set up in the
meeting-room at Burlington House a few days previously, with
the polar axis in the position relative to the horizon that it would
have at Ascension, latitude 8 S. In making a final necessary
alteration a holding screw was turned which proved to be shorter
than was to be expected and had run out ; so there was nothing
to keep down the lower end of the polar axis, and this with all
it carried crashed to the ground. The instrument alighted on
the eye-end, which was driven through the floor and snapped off,
and by this means the shock of the fall was broken and less damage
was done than might have been expected. After the meeting the
heliometer tube was sent to Messrs. Troughton & Simms, while
Messrs. Cooke & Sons and Mr. John Browning repaired the mount-
ing. Within ten days all was again in order, the instrument tested,
packed and stowed on board ship. Short reports from Mr. Gill
during his stay at Ascension will be found at various places in the
Monthly Notices,* and the definite results in volume 46 of the
Memoirs. Mrs. Gill's book, Six Months in Ascension, An Unscien-
tific Account of a Scientific Expedition, tells the story from another
point of view. Mr. and Mrs. Gill returned to England in 1878
January.
The solar parallax was a prominent feature of the session
1877-78. Sir George Airy opened the meeting in 1877 November
by announcing the value of the constant 8 "-760 derived from the
British observations of the Transit of Venus and published in the
Parliamentary Report. Mr. Stone sent from the Cape a re-dis-
cussion of the same observations, interpreting the meaning of the
word " contact " according to his own view, which was different
to that adopted in the official reduction, and derived the
considerably different value 8 "-884. This was received at the
meeting in March and led to some discussion, Mr. Gill objecting
to so large a value on the ground that it was not consistent with
Struve's constant of aberration and Cornu's value of the velocity
of light. A second paper by Mr. Stone, to be found in the Monthly
Notices for April, in which he discussed the observations of contact
made at the Cape, apparently because he felt they had not been
given sufficient weight, in the official reduction, two of them
having been rejected, supported his previous result and led him
to affirm that the value of the solar parallax must lie between
8"-84 and 8"-g2. At the meeting in June, Captain Tupman, under
* Vol. 37, 310-326; 38, i-n, 17-21, 57-58, 89-90.
1870-80
] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 197
whose superintendence the reduction of the British observations
had been made at Greenwich, presented a result of the discussion
of the solar parallax from observations made by British Colonial
observers beyond those given in the Parliamentary Report, which
produced a result considerably larger, lying between 8 "-82 and
8 "-88 ; and in the supplementary number there is to be found the
values derived from the photographs, which were absurdly small
and quite inadmissible, alternative figures being 8 "-240 and 8 "-082.
A value of this fundamental constant of Astronomy derived from
observations of Mars at the opposition in 1877 was communicated
to the Society in December of that year by Mr. Maxwell Hall,
an amateur astronomer in Jamaica, who had determined the
parallax by means of the displacement of the planet in right
ascension when far east and far west of the meridian, measured
by transits of the planet and comparison stars over the wires of
a 4-inch equatorial. The resulting parallax was 8 "-79, with a
probable error of dbo"-o6o. The parallax found by Mr. Gill from
his observations of Mars at Ascension was 8"-78o"-oi2.
Opportunity had been taken by several persons of the close
approach of Mars at the 1877 opposition to make observations of
its surface features, and several communications of this kind will
be found in the Monthly Notices of this period Mr. N. E. Green,
an artist and amateur astronomer, had made a journey to Madeira
for the purpose. His drawings of the planet, made in 1877 August
and September, were presented to the Society in November
and are published in volume 44 of the Memoirs. The outer
satellite of Mars was observed in England by various observers.
There was a transit of Mercury of 1878 May 6, which was
observed by many persons, features specially looked for being
a halo of light round the dark disc of the planet in transit, and
a white spot said to be sometimes seen at its centre, which were
discussed at some length at the meeting in May. It appears that
these were considered important circumstances, for though no
time observations were made at Greenwich owing to the state of
the sky at ingress and egress, the planet in transit was examined
at the Royal Observatory for the physical features above
mentioned.* Other communications to the Society that may be
specially noted are two papers on the Lunar Theory by Professor
Adams, and three by Mr. Neison.
Mention may also be made of the visit of Professor Rutherfurd,
of New York, in 1878 May, who presented some photographs of
the sun taken in 1871, showing granulations or rice grains, for the
purpose of correcting to some extent a statement made at an earlier
meeting that certain photographs taken by M. Janssen were the
* M.N., 38, 397-
198 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
first to show such markings ; and secondly, a magnificent photo-
graph of the solar spectrum which reached across the meeting-room.
The original spectrum had been found by an interference plate,
or grating, with about 17,300 lines to an inch, the machine, with
which the lines were ruled having been constructed by himself.
Some description of his method of procedure will be found in the
report of the meeting in volume 2 of The Observatory Magazine.
As a point in the history of Astronomy, it may not be out of
place to record here that the first number of that periodical ap-
peared in 1877 April, by initiation of, and under the Editorship
of Mr. W. H. M. Christie, who had the support of many leading
astronomers.
The following are extracts from the prospectus issued on a post
card early in April :
The Observatory. A Monthly Review of Astronomy
No. I will be published on April 20. The successive numbers
will be forwarded post free to Subscribers on the third Friday of
each month.
Subscriptions for three months (including postage), three
shillings (for the United Kingdom).
The Observatory will aim at presenting in a popular form a
general review of the progress of Astronomy, and at promoting
the activity of observers by affording early intelligence of recent
advances in the Science.
Contributions have been promised by Captain Abney, Sir G. B.
Airy, Col. A. Campbell, Dr. De la Rue, Mr. Dunkin, Mr. J. W. L.
Glaisher, Professor A. S. Herschel, Mr. Hind, Mr. Knobel, Mr.
Knott, Rev. E. Ledger, Rev. R. Main, Mr. Neison, Professor
Pritchard, Professor J. Stuart, Mr. J. M. Wilson.
The Gold Medal was not awarded in 1877, though the claims
of several persons as recipient were considered at the Council
table. Mr. Lockyer was selected as the recipient at the meeting
of the Council in December (1876), but the selection was not
confirmed at the January meeting. It seems remarkable that
Mr. Lockyer should never have received the medal, considering
how many times his name had been proposed ; but since a majority
of three-fourths of those present is requisite for confirmation, it
is not difficult to see that three or four opponents are sufficient to
effect their joint purpose. In 1878 the medal was given to Baron
Dembowski for his observations of double stars, which branch of
Astronomy was being actively followed at the time, as in the
Report of the Council in 1877 February on the Progress of Astro-
nomy, five of the paragraphs related to double stars.
The similar Report for 1878 has notices on four researches on
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 199
the lunar theory, one being Professor Newcomb's investigation of
the motion of the moon by examination of observations of early
eclipses and occultations ; others were by Dr. G. W. Hill and
Professor Adams on the motion of the moon's perigee and the
motion of the node respectively, and the fourth the numerical
lunar theory on which Sir George Airy had been engaged
for several years, and on the progress of which he occasionally
made reports. Mr. Neison communicated four papers in the
session 1877-78, one on " Hansen's Terms of Long Period " being
specially instructive. Meteoric Astronomy is represented in the
Annual Reports of 1876 and 1877 by long notices prepared by
Professor Alexander Herschel, who also published in the Monthly
Notices for 1878 May a long list of known accordances between
cometary and observed meteor showers.
It is made evident in several ways that the study of meteors
was making progress. Mr. Denning, who was elected a Fellow
of the Society in 1877 June had published several extensive lists
of radiant points from observations by himself and others, and
in 1878 January he contributed one which contained his first
suggestion of Stationary Radiant Points. The satellites of Mars
were naturally mentioned in the 1878 Report, and the Council
were fortunate in receiving a graphic account from Professor
Asaph Hall of the circumstances attending the discovery, which,
as he explained, was the result of an organised search. The
nova in Cygnus discovered by Schmidt at Athens on 1876 Novem-
ber 24, received little attention in its early stages from English
astronomers, as immediate announcement of the discovery was
not made. The Society took no concerted action and there was
no grant from Government funds or those of other Societies for
observing the total solar eclipse of 1878 July 29, when the track
of totality passed across the western states of America, though
several Fellows of the Society made the expedition at their own
expense. Professor Thorpe and Dr. Schuster were the guests of
Professor Asaph Hall. Mr. Lockyer took up his position with
Professor Watson at a place known as Separation, on the Union
Pacific Railway. The eclipse was well observed in several respects,
a sensational item being the reported discovery by Professor
Watson and Mr. Lewis Swift, independently, of an object of magni-
tude 4 J, near the sun, which was neither a known star nor a planet,
and was supposed to be the long-sought -for intra-Mercurial planet,
Vulcan.* This, however, has not proved to be the case. The
appearance of the corona was of the kind now known as the
minimum type, and this distinction between types appears to
have arisen on this occasion, for Professor Young remarked, " The
* See Observatory, 2, 161, 193,235.
200 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
eclipse of 1878 has demonstrated that the unknown cause, what-
ever it may be, which produces the periodical sun-spots at intervals
of about eleven years, also affects the coronal atmosphere of the
sun." * The corona in this eclipse gave a continuous spectrum,
without any of the bright lines which had been seen on former
occasions. The I474K line was conspicuous by its absence, which
was established not only by eye observations, but also by photo-
graphs taken by Dr. Draper, Professor Harkness, and Mr. Lockyer,
a diffraction-grating having been placed in front of the camera.
The writer of a note in The Observatory, from which the above
information is taken, goes on : " We trust that the success of
this method will be a lesson to certain Fellows of the Royal Astro-
nomical Society, who with glib assurance asserted that it was
physically impossible to photograph the spectrum of the corona,
and who did their best to prevent the method from being even
tried under Mr. Lockyer 's auspices in the eclipse at Siam." f
In the year 1878 a legal transaction took place somewhat
to the financial benefit of the Society, the story of which is precisely
described in the Monthly Notices, 39, 211 (February 1879) :
In the year 1836 Dr. John Lee, who was then Treasurer of the
Society, executed a deed of gift, by which he conveyed to the Society
the advowson of Hartwell, and in 1844 by another deed of gift he
conveyed the advowson of Stone, in Buckinghamshire, to the Society.
Shortly before the date of these deeds his estate had been
resettled by Private Act of Parliament, by which the manors of
Hartwell and Stone were entailed, leaving Dr. Lee with only a life
interest in them. The living of Stone fell vacant in the lifetime of
Dr. Lee, and the Society presented Dr. Booth, who held the living
until last April, when he died. Soon after the death of Dr. Booth
the Council received formal notice that the present Lord of the
Manor of Hartwell, Mr. Edward Lee, intended to dispute the
Society's title to both livings, on the ground that they were (in
legal language) appendant to the manors and consequently included
in the entail.
The Council nevertheless presented the Rev. James Challis,
M.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, who, besides being the son
of Professor Challis, a distinguished Fellow of the Society, had
many other recommendations. Mr. Lee took steps to dispute the
presentation, and the Council employed a solicitor who had unusual
opportunities of being acquainted with such matters. The result
of this investigation was that he found that the advowson of Stone
had long been severed from the manor, and that the Society's title
was good ; but that in the case of Hartwell the matter was at
least very doubtful. The litigation to establish such a claim,
depending on historical inquiries, would be very costly ; and even
* Observatory, 2, 235. t Ibid., 162.
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 201
if the Society succeeded it would have to bear a great part of the
costs, which could not, according to the rules laid down by the
Courts, be recovered from the other side.
It was found that Mr. Lee did not wish to present any friend
of his own to the vacant living, and was willing to settle the dis-
pute by purchasing for the sum of 700 the advowson of Stone,
subject to the Society's right of presentation to the existing
vacancy, and to a release of the Society's claim to Hartwell
being included.
These terms were submitted as a resolution at the Annual
General Meeting held in 1879 February. It was agreed to, and
the Rev. James Challis was presented to the living by the Society.*
5. 1879-1880
The outstanding incident of the session 1878-9 was again of
a contentious nature, and brought a new personality on to the
scene, who put the Council in a rather unpleasant position. This
was Mr. Herbert Sadler, who had joined the Society in 1876
November immediately after leaving Cambridge. He appears
not to have taken up any definite profession, but engaged himself
in miscellaneous scientific work. He was specially devoted to
double-star Astronomy, and by the aid of a 3j-inch telescope, the
property of the Society, added notes and corrections to published
catalogues.
At the Council meeting in 1878 December, when, according to
custom, the " House " Balloting List was prepared, Mr. Sadler's
name was included, though he had made no contribution to the
Proceedings of the Society up to that date, and though he was little
known except to one or two members of the Council. He was
elected in due course to the governing body in 1879 February.
In January he contributed a paper under the title, " Notes on the
late Admiral Smyth's 4 Cycle of Celestial Objects,' Volume the
Second, commonly known as the 4 Bedford Catalogue,' " which was
the cause of much offence. The form of this work is well known.
The second volume consists of a list of double and multiple stars,
which are described individually in a chatty and historical manner,
and gives the position, angle, and distance of the companion,
from the results of his own observations. Mr. Sadler asserted
that many of these supposed positions were much in error, and
insinuated that they were not the result of measures, but that
Admiral Smyth had simply copied or " followed " the observations
of previous observers. An example will explain the precise nature
* It appears from the obituary notice of Mr. Challis (M.N., 80, 345) that
the parishes of Hartwell and Stone were united in 1902.
202 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
of the charge. In the Bedford Catalogue the position, angle,
and distance of the companion of y Persei are given as 226-o,
55 "-o. Mr. Burnham found the position-angle to be 324-!, and
Mr. Sadler suggested that Smyth had " followed " Sir John
HerschePs position-angle of 224 -9, which is known to be a mis-
print. Similarly, Smyth gives the position-angle of the companion
of 8 Cancri as i63-o, whereas later observers find 124 or 114,
and the charge was made that Smyth copied a fallacious measure
of Sir John Herschel's, 160. Mr. Sadler's paper consisted of a
large collection of such examples, preceded by an introduction
of criticism somewhat offensively worded. Mr. Sadler quoted
from a letter by Mr. Burnham : " No publication of original
observations in this or any other language can be named which
contains so many serious errors. . . . There is no theory which
will account for the many serious discrepancies. The measures
generally agree substantially with those which are given from
prior observers, but this agreement is kept up just the same
where the earlier measures were all wrong." And then Mr. Sadler
goes on in his own words : " As far as I am aware there is one
catalogue only, and that not an original one, which surpasses the
Bedford Catalogue in inaccuracy, and that Catalogue is the
' Reference Catalogue of Multiple and Double Stars,' " forming
volume 40 of the Memoirs. This Reference Catalogue was one
edited for the Society by the Rev. R. Main and Professor Pritchard
from a manuscript left by Sir John Herschel. Mr. Sadler pointed
out no specific mistakes in this catalogue, but merely made the
general charge as above. Admiral Smyth had received the Gold
Medal of the Society in 1845 for the publication of his " Cycle,"
the presentation having been made by Airy ; and Mr. Sadler called
attention to what he called the cautious language used by the
Astronomer Royal when speaking of the micrometrical measures.
Airy's attention was drawn to the apparently slanderous state-
ments by Mr. C. G. Talmage, who received the following letter
in reply :
1879 February 18.
I remember the award of the Medal of the Royal Astronomical
Society to Captain Smyth, and my address on that occasion. I
had great confidence in Captain Smyth's observations, but in
regard to the award of the Medal, I thought that unusual circum-
stances required caution. I. The award to a printed book, in
many respects a mere catalogue, was unusual. 2. The language
of the book is not satisfactory to strangers. 3. Captain Smyth was
a member of the Council, and I know well that none of the voters
for the Medal that is co-fellows of Captain Smyth had ever
looked at the book.
ADMIRAL W. H. SMYTH
(1788-1865)
To face p. 202.]
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 203
With this account, you will perceive why I thought it proper
that the Society should be furnished with all the vouchers for the
observations.*
Airy appeared not to be particularly concerned about the
attack on the Bedford Catalogue, because this consisted of specific
charges that could be answered, but he objected to the loose and
unsupported criticism of the " Reference Catalogue," and felt
that the Council should have been more careful in publishing the
paper. The matter was naturally the subject of much discussion
privately. It appears that Mr. Sadler's paper had been referred
in the usual manner to two Members of the Council ; but one of
these referees did not see the paper, and the other gave it merely
a cursory examination.
At the meeting in March, Mr. Talmage was allowed to read
" Remarks on Mr. Sadler's paper in the January number,"
consisting mainly of a letter addressed to him by Professor C.
Piazzi Smyth, son of Admiral Smyth, in which the Professor
naturally protested against Mr. Sadler's strictures. This gave an
opportunity for several persons to state their views. A number of
Fellows spoke vigorously against Mr. Sadler, and imputed to him
a feeling of malignity and the desire to throw discredit on an
honourable man. Others took a different line and were inclined
to make excuses for Mr. Sadler, on the ground that his remarks
were nothing more than fair criticism, and that it was advisable
to correct errors in a published work. Mr. Sadler was not prepared
to withdraw anything. He said that he had not imputed dis-
honesty to Admiral Smyth, that his remarks were legitimate
criticism, and that he had the right to point out errors. On being
pressed by Mr. Common to withdraw any imputation of bad faith,
he said that it was impossible to deny the imputations for which
he had given grounds in his paper.
Mr. Sadler's assertion that he had not imputed dishonesty to
Captain Smyth is scarcely consistent with the fact that he had in
his paper spoken of cases where Smyth " has presumably copied
the measures of others." There also was in the English Mechanic
on the day of this meeting (March 13) a letter by him, in
which he spoke of the Bedford Catalogue in these words : "A
stupendous fraud, as one of the first of double-star observers has
happily termed it." The obnoxious phrase had been applied to
the work by Mr. Burnham in a communication to the English
Mechanic, which Mr. Proctor at a later stage endeavoured to soften
by pointing out that the American use of the word " fraud " is
* In presenting the medal, Airy had asked Captain Smyth that the MSS.
of his observations should be presented to the Society for reference. They
were soon after deposited in the library.
204 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
something different to the English. Mr. Burnham endorsed this
explanation in a paper contributed to the Monthly Notices
in 1880.
The President (Lord Lindsay), Sir George Airy, and other
Members of Council felt that some action should be taken to
express their disapproval of Mr. Sadler's paper, for the publication
of which they held themselves responsible. The Astronomer
Royal prepared draft resolutions which were submitted to the
Council at a Special Meeting on Monday, 1879 April 7. Of the
essential resolutions, four in number, three only were adopted,
and these after some amendment. The fourth resolution, which
was condemnatory of Mr. Sadler's criticism of the " Reference
Catalogue," was dropped. Airy took this emendation of his
plan so seriously that he immediately, at this meeting on April 7,
resigned his office of Vice-President of the Society, which led to
the publication of the following note in Nature of April 10.
In the interests of British science we have refrained now for
some time from referring to the evil days which have fallen upon
one of the most reputable of our learned societies. The time, how-
ever, has now come when silence is impossible. At the meeting
of the Royal Astronomical Society's Council yesterday, the
Astronomer Royal, in consequence of the recent action of the
Council an action inevitable when the present constitution of
that body is considered resigned his seat at the board. We cannot
too much regret that this Society, the traditions of which are second
to none in Europe, should have been utilised for some years past
by an advertising clique who have everything to gain by their
connection with a body of honourable students of science. The
withdrawal of men long known for their astronomical work from
the Council commenced some time since. It has now culminated
in the resignation of the Astronomer Royal, and we are informed
that other resignations are to follow ; indeed, a man of scientific
repute risks somewhat in being found among the Councillors.
Surely the Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society of London
are strong enough to remedy such a state of things as this.
The three amended resolutions were considered and adopted
by the Council at their ordinary monthly meeting on April 9
(Good Friday fell on April n in this year) when it was resolved
that they should be further discussed at the next meeting of the
Council, which would be on May 9. On that occasion extensive
verbal alterations were made, and the fourth of the original resolu-
tions proposed by Airy was restored with some modification.
Finally, the resolutions given below were passed by the Council
and read to the Fellows present at the meeting of the Society in
the evening of the same date.
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 205
Since the publication of the Monthly Notices of the Society for
January 1879, tne attention of the Council has been recalled to an
article headed, " Notes on the late Admiral Smyth's Cycle of
Celestial Objects, etc., by Herbert Sadler, Esq.," containing remarks
on several of the star measures given in that Catalogue, and also
containing a sentence reflecting on the " Reference Catalogue of
Multiple and Double Stars," forming vol. xl. of the Memoirs.
The Council, feeling themselves responsible for the contents
of the Society's publications, cannot but express their regret that
they should have authorised the printing of this article in its
present form.
While they desire to uphold to the utmost perfect freedom
in the criticism of scientific works, they would at the same time
enforce a general rule to exclude from the Society's publications
any imputation upon the personal honour or good faith of the
authors : and they are sorry to observe in Mr. Sadler's article some
remarks which are capable of being, and to the knowledge of the
Council have been, construed in a sense which infringes this rule.
The Council are, moreover, of opinion that Mr. Sadler was
not justified in passing a sweeping condemnation on the Reference
Catalogue, which is irrelevant to the rest of the article, and is
entirely unsupported by the citation of the instances on which his
judgment was founded.
Mr. G. F. Chambers had given formal notice that he wished
to propose the following resolution at this meeting in May :
" That accusations of wilful fraud in connection with the composi-
tion by the late Admiral Smyth of his Cycle of Celestial Objects,
having been made by Mr. Herbert Sadler, a member of the Council,
the meeting is of opinion that the Council are deserving of censure
for not having taken steps to have these charges either proved or
retracted, and calls for the immediate resignation of Mr. Sadler."
But after hearing the resolutions of the Council, Mr. Chambers
said that he did not wish to proceed with his motion. Neverthe-
less, discussion followed, and the meeting was not conducted
without some heat. It was on this occasion that Mr. Proctor,
in a temperate speech, endeavoured to palliate Mr. Burnham's
use of the word " fraud." Mr. Sadler's resignation from the
Council was accepted in June.
It may be added that Airy, despite his unexpected resignation
on April 7, was re-elected a Vice-President in 1880 February.
The question of the dependence to be placed on the
measures contained in the Bedford Catalogue was settled once
for all by two papers in the June number of the Monthly Notices
for 1880. Mr. Burnham had measured most of the distant com-
panions observed by Smyth, but by no one before him. Smyth's
results were found " either roughly approximate or grossly
206 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
incorrect." This paper was immediately followed by Mr. Knobel's
" Notes on a paper entitled ' An Examination of the Double Star
Measures of the Bedford Catalogue, by S. W. Burnham.' " Mr.
Knobel had examined Smyth's original observing books belonging
to our Society, and also the Spherical Crystal Micrometer with
which a great many of Smyth's measures of position angles were
made, and which was now in the possession of the Astronomer
Royal. The principal results found were :
1. Of the 150 objects re-observed by Burnham, 82 per cent,
of the distances had weight one assigned to them by Smyth, which
according to his own testimony represented " nearly worthless-
ness." But these rough estimates, instead of being given as,
for instance, 2^' or i J', were printed as I5o"-o or 75"-o, which was
very misleading.
2. Position angles were measured by pointing the double
image of A in the direction of B, and as the axis of the spherical
crystal could be revolved freely round the circle in either direction,
two readings might be obtained for every position angle, and this
was a fruitful source of error and confusion, which fully accounts
for Smyth's apparent dependence on the results of his predecessors.
Mr. Knobel had thus completely succeeded in vindicating
Smyth's character.
The Gold Medal was again not presented in 1880 February.
Huggins was chosen as the recipient at the Council meeting in
1879 December, but the result was not confirmed with the requisite
majority at the January meeting. Several other names had been
proposed at the November meeting. Airy did not attend the meet-
ing in December, when the claims of the nominees were discussed
and voted on, but he sent his reasoned opinion on each to the
President, Lord Lindsay. He supported Huggins wholeheartedly,
because though he was not the original suggestor of the idea he
was practically the inventor of the process for determining the
velocity of stars in the line of sight, and " has arrived, and has
shown other persons how to arrive, at most striking and important
cosmical results."
The action of the Council was therefore in accordance with
Airy's views in selecting Huggins. But apparently some of the
members thought that they were being dictated to and were asked
to bow to authority, and they therefore combined to frustrate
the decision taken in December, as stated. In consequence of
this, feeling again ran high, and the election of Officers and Council
in February was again a contested one. Circulars and rival
balloting lists were issued, among others by Professor Pritchard,
not without some success.
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 207
Though it involves a slight departure from chronological order
it will be convenient to complete now the history of the question
of the Endowment of Research in so far as it affected the actual
proceedings being issued of our Society. The Duke of Devonshire's
Commission on Scientific Instruction and Advancement of Science *
continued its labours for some years, and by its action Mr. Norman
Lockyer was given a post in the Royal College of Science in 1875,
and a Committee was appointed by the Lords of the Committee of
Council on Education in 1879, whose purpose it was to further
the study of Solar Physics. This Committee was composed of
G. G. Stokes, Balfour Stewart, Richard Strachey, Norman Lockyer,
W. de W. Abney, and J. F. D. Donnelly. On its establishment
Parliament voted an annual grant of 500, 300 of which was for
payments to members of the Committee for fees and travelling
expenses, leaving 200 for scientific assistance, chemicals, etc.
It was arranged that in addition to this grant such assistance
as was possible should be given by the general staff of the Depart-
ment of Science and Art and in the Laboratory of the Science
School. This provision, scanty as it was, did not however pass
without comment, and there was correspondence in the public
press protesting against the application of public funds for the
purposes of pure research. The ordained staple work of the Com-
mittee appears to have been to arrange for keeping a photographic
record of the solar surface ; but a paragraph in a preliminary
Report "f made in 1880, to the Committee of Council, to determine
whether the Treasury should be applied to for an extension of the
vote for another year, shows how this simple programme was
extended, and is informing in several ways.
The Committee have had thirteen formal meetings. In
addition to this several Members of the Committee have carried
on special branches of the inquiry ; and Mr. Lockyer, as arranged
when the Committee was appointed, has been charged with the
general conduct of the observational and experimental work at
South Kensington. The Committee consider that by his Laboratory
work and comparison of the results with Solar phenomena he has
brought together a great body of evidence tending, prima facie, to
conclusions of the utmost importance. The labour and difficulty
of the research are, however, so great that much additional time
and attention must continue to be bestowed on it before the
questions thus raised can be considered as finally settled ; and
the Committee think it of much importance that the researches
now being carried on should not be interrupted.
The remainder of this Preliminary Report deals mainly with
* See above, p. 174. t See Nature, 1880 May 13.
208 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
details about the taking of solar photographs, but contains the
following paragraph :
As has been already explained, the Committee were appointed
as a temporary measure to prepare the way for something of a
more permanent and systematic nature, and it is to aid them in
this work that the Indian observations have been asked for. What
shape the research may permanently take it is impossible at the
present time to predict.
The light in which the appointment of this Committee and
its support by the Government was regarded by certain Fellows
of our Society is clear from the account of the proceedings at the
Annual General Meeting in 1881 February, when a motion, the
text of which is given below, was proposed by Sir Edmund Beckett.
The requisite notice was signed by Lord Crawford, Sir Edmund
Beckett, Mr. Ranyard, Mr. G. P. Bidder, Captain Noble, and
Mr. Barrow. Sir E. Beckett, in making the proposition, distinctly
stated that he was not the originator of the movement.
That a Meeting be held at the Society's rooms of the Members
thereof, and such other persons as like to attend, to consider the
question of the Endowment of Research by the Government ; and
that the Astronomer Royal be requested to take the Chair at that
Meeting.
The discussion on this motion took precedence of the reading
of the Council Report by special resolution, and turned almost
entirely on the question whether it was or was not ultra vires for
the Society to hold a meeting for a purpose not definitely astro-
nomical. Mr. Christie and Mr. De la Rue were among those who
opposed the motion in this sense. It is clear from the reported
speeches that there was considerable animus underlying this whole
matter. In course of seconding the motion the Earl of Crawford
said, " I will not go into any question of past or future party
fights. I would advocate payment for results as much as you like ;
but I do not think it is desirable in the interests of science, not only
in this country but everywhere else, that men should be placed in
a position with a fixed salary and really answerable to nobody for
what they have to do." This seems to represent the feeling
of the opposition.
The motion was amended to read : " That a meeting be held at
the Society's rooms of members thereof to consider the question
of the Endowment of Research by the Government," and carried,
with a further resolution that the Council should fix a day for such
a meeting. In consequence thereof the Secretaries issued a
notice on March 21, calling a Special General Meeting on 1881
April i to consider this question, when the resolutions which
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 209
follow, of which they had received proper notice, would be moved
by one of the signatories.
1. That, in the opinion of this Society, the granting of public
money for scientific research in cases where it does not appear
that results useful to the public will be obtained, or where the re-
searches proposed are likely to be undertaken by private individuals
or public bodies, does not tend to the real advancement of science.
2. That this Meeting considers it inexpedient that a Physical
Observatory should be founded at the national expense.
3. That this Meeting is of opinion that the Government grant
to the Committee on Solar Physics at South Kensington should be
discontinued.
4. That, in the opinion of this Meeting, full accounts should be
published of all money expended by the Government for scientific
purposes, and that in all cases the nature of the work to be under-
taken should be defined as clearly as possible.
Signed by Crawford and Balcarres, Edmund Beckett, George
P. Bidder, G. F. Chambers, J. Kennedy Esdaile, William Noble,
A. Cowper Ranyard.
These are the names on the Notice given to the Secretaries.
In the report of the meeting in the Observatory magazine, Airy's
name is added.
A different view of the matter was put forward by Mr. A. A.
Common in a circular sent to all the Fellows of the Society,
dated March 27. In the course of this he said :
If we take a broad view of the matter, and consider it fairly,
what do we find ? That we, as a Society, formed, as our Charter
says, " for promoting a general spirit of inquiry in Astronomical
subjects," and as our first bye-law says, " instituted for the encourage-
ment and promotion of Astronomy," are actually asked to pass
resolutions that will effectually stop any supplies of money from
the Government for any research that may not result in something
useful to the public, or for the founding of a physical observatory,
which will most certainly never be founded except by National
money, and to stop supplies that already exist on a moderate scale.
Our first object ought to be the advancement of Astronomy this
cannot be done without money. To stop the supply of money is
to stop the advancement of Astronomy. It cannot be said that
private individuals can do all that is necessary : there is nothing
ignoble in receiving money from Government for such purposes as
the founding of an Observatory, or for doing the many things that
ought to be done.
Let us think how we stand with regard to other nations ; pass
them through your mind ; we are all behind, doing nothing, and
in a state of stagnation, and while America, France, Austria, and
others are founding Observatories and promoting the Science in
14
210 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80
a large and liberal manner, we are asked to assist in this state of
stagnation by leaving all in the hands of a few private individuals
who cannot, if they would, undertake the work that requires doing,
and now, because certain Fellows of the Society have an idea that
the real advancement of Science can only take place in a certain
way, we must lag behind and cease to lead as we did.
There was a crowded room on the occasion of the meeting on
April i, and an account of the proceedings, with seemingly verbatim
reports of the speeches, will be found in the Observatory magazine
for 1 88 1 May. Sir Edmund Beckett opened the discussion with
a speech of some length, speaking to the main question and giving
reasons why research should not be endowed. Captain Noble
seconded the resolution, but his speech is not recorded. Professor
H. J. S. Smith moved an amendment equivalent to the " previous
question," that " under existing circumstances there is no sufficient
reason for the expression of any opinion by the Royal Astronomical
Society in its corporate capacity upon the question of the Endow-
ment of Research by the Government." He urged among other
things that the first resolution might be read as a censure on the
grant made by the Government to the Royal Society, and explained
that his words " Under existing circumstances " were intended
to guard against the possible event of Government funds being
at the disposal of persons who might be corruptible and use them
improperly, which he did not suggest for one moment was then the
case. Mr. Fletcher Moulton expressed somewhat the same views,
namely, that the subject was not one for discussion by the Society,
and mentioned in his speech that he had found that in a com-
munication to the English Mechanic, Captain Noble had been
addressed formally as the " Secretary of the Society for opposing
the Endowment of Research," which is illuminating as to the
feeling on the matter. A letter from Sir George Airy to Captain
Noble, in the same capacity, giving the Astronomer Royal's
considered views on Endowment, will be found in the Observatory
for 1881 March, and in the Athenceum for 1881 February 19. Mr.
Ranyard, Mr. George Forbes, Mr. Schuster, and several others
spoke, and a written communication from Sir George Airy was
read, in which he said, " My objection to the establishment of the
Committee on Solar Physics is intended to apply only so far as
it is a paid Committee. I do not object to the purpose for which
the Committee was appointed or to the payment of a Secretary,
or to expenses incidental to an office. The Committee, I believe,
have faithfully discharged their understood duties, and I shall
willingly co-operate with them to the best of my power." Finally,
Professor Smith's amendment was put to the meeting and carried
by a majority of fifty to ten. Mr. Moulton moved, and Lord
Ghip/taited' wy, (ff. c^L. os-&end
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ZondoTL.Publisktci bvNa.cmiLla.rL &. C
1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 211
Crawford seconded, that the debate be adjourned sine die, which
after opposition from Mr. Ranyard was carried with two dis-
sentients, and so the subject of the Endowment of Research
passed from the purview of the Royal Astronomical Society.
It is worthy of remark that Mr. Lockyer attended the ordinary
meeting (which he had not done for some time) on May 13 and
delivered a discourse on observations of the sun with the spectro-
scope, dealing specially with the observations made at South
Kensington in the previous two and a half years.
In spite of the factious feeling that existed in the Society,
which may be inferred from this history of the decade, and some-
times showed itself by rather unseemly conduct at the meeting,
a considerable amount of valuable work was done, to which the
volumes of the Memoirs (37, part 2, to 44 inclusive) and
Monthly Notices (30 to 39) bear witness. In the former series
there are (in addition to the reference catalogue of double stars
in volume 40 and the bulky Eclipse Volume) some valuable
papers by Cayley and Glaisher, the " Chronology of Star Cata-
logues " by Knobel, and a remarkably great number of observa-
tions of double stars by various observers. In the Notices we
find first many papers representing the immense amount of labour
expended on the Transit of Venus. Other papers deal as usual
with a variety of subjects from most branches of Astronomy.
Only Astrophysics is poorly represented, owing to the almost total
absence of contributions from Huggins and Lockyer.
The material progress of the Society during the decade is shown
by comparison of the figures in the Annual Reports of 1870 and
1880 February. In the earlier year the total number of Fellows
was 512, as against 592 in 1880, the Associates numbering respec-
tively 45 and 43. Of the 592, five had been members of the old
Mathematical Society and paid no subscription. There is still
an item in this tabular statement of the personnel of the Society
headed " Non-resident Fellows." * It is a little unexpected to
learn from the 1870 Report that there were at that date eleven
such Fellows who must have joined the Society nearly forty years
before. In 1880 the number had become reduced to four, and the
last of these early Fellows died in 1885. The funded property
of the Society had increased from 8400 to 13,200 (face value),
and the income on the same from 237 in the 1870 account to
361 in that of 1880. In the report of the later year it is men-
tioned that the Library contained about 8000 volumes, and that
since the removal to Burlington House nearly 3000 of these had
been bound in a substantial manner, while there remained about
1000 to be similarly treated.
* See above, p. 80.
CHAPTER VII
1880-1920. (By J. L. E. DREYER)
THE history of the Society during the last forty years cannot
yet be written in detail. The events are too recent, and most of
those who were prominent members of the Society during the
greater part of this period are still living, so that comments on
their acts in a book published by the Society would be inappro-
priate. It must also be acknowledged that however fruitful
the labours of the Society at large and of many individual members
have been since 1880, and however vast the strides made by
Science have been, the course run by the Society has been very
smooth. When once the storm raised by the movement for
" Endowment of Research " had subsided, its history was quite
free from exciting episodes or controversies, which would supply
good material to a historical writer.
For these reasons it has been decided not to deal separately
with each of the last four decades, but to treat these forty years
as one period, and chiefly to review those doings of the Council
on behalf of the Society of which little or no printed record is
accessible to the Fellows. After that we shall sketch what may
be called the internal history of the Society and its publications.
Owing to the enormous development of Astronomy in recent
years and the great increase in the number of publications, we are
not able in the limited space of this record to review the history
of the Society in its connection with the progress of our science
in the same detail as was done for the first sixty years of the
century.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century the invention of
the telescope supplied astronomers with an instrument which
not only made it possible to get some idea of the nature of the
heavenly bodies, but also very greatly increased the accuracy of
observations of their positions. It is not too much to say that
the rise of celestial photography towards the end of the nineteenth
century effected an equally great revolution in Astronomy, though
212
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 213
in this case the change came somewhat more gradually. This is
not the place to describe the development of the use of photo-
graphy either in delineating the features of sun, moon, nebulae,
and their spectra, or in providing new methods of determining
stellar positions, which until the advent of the gelatine-emulsion
process about the middle of the seventies made very slow progress.
The immense increase in sensitiveness of the photographic plate
then obtainable almost at once changed astronomical photography
from a curious toy into a most important adjunct to an observatory.
Draper led the way by photographing the nebula in Orion in 1881,
but his early death in the following year left the field open to
Common, whose brilliant success was, in 1884, rewarded by the
bestowal of the Society's Gold Medal.
In 1883, Common proposed to Gould, who had photographed
about seventy star-clusters at Cordoba, a joint arrangement for
photographing the whole heavens.* Gould's work in South
America was so near its close that he was unable to undertake
anything new, and the immense labour of measuring the plates
would in any case have tended to deter him. But by that time
the problem of charting the stars by photography had attracted
attention in various quarters. The great number of stars visible
on the Cape photographs of the great comet of 1882 showed the
possibilities of the new method, and so did the experiments made
in 1884 by the brothers Henry at Paris. They found in the
course of their continuation of Chacornac's Ecliptic Atlas, that
their task became impossible when they approached the Milky
Way, so that they were compelled to try the use of photography.
In 1885 June, Admiral Mouchez, Director of the Paris Observatory,
sent to our Society a cliche* of part of the Milky Way as well as an
enlarged photograph of the same. The instrument employed
had a specially constructed object-glass of 34 cm. aperture, made
by Paul and Prosper Henry, and three exposures of an hour each
were made, producing three images of every star, 4 "-5 apart, to
guard against accidental spots on the plate being mistaken for
stars. In the covering letter f it was suggested that six or eight
observatories ought to combine in order to produce in the course
of eight or ten years a complete set of maps of the whole heavens.
Quite independently of the work done at Paris, Gill had in the
meantime started work at the Cape, to continue by photography
Argelander's and Schonfeld's Durchmusterung to the South Pole.
The first plates were taken on 1885 April 2, and the work was
completed by the end of 1890. Thanks to the devoted co-opera-
* The Observatory, 9, 326.
t Monthly Notices, 46, i. Compare Mouchez' account, Comptes Rendus,
1885 May ii.
214 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920
tion of Kapteyn, who measured all the plates, the publication of
three volumes of the Annals of the Cape Observatory was com-
pleted in 1900, containing approximate places of 454,875 stars
south of 18 Declination. A rare example of an immense piece
of work carried out in a comparatively short time by the unwearied
patience and perseverance of two individuals working at a great
distance from each other.
In the meantime the French Academic des Sciences had invited
scientific bodies and observatories in all countries to send dele-
gates to an international astrophotographic congress, to be held
in Paris to discuss the preparation of a photographic chart of the
heavens. The congress was opened at the Paris Observatory on
1887 April 16. Of the eight members from Great Britain, three
(Common, Knobel, Tennant) represented our Society, and a full
report of the proceedings was printed in the Annual Report of the
Council in the following February.* The following are the prin-
cipal resolutions of the congress :
A chart to be made of all stars down to the fourteenth magni-
tude, the plates to be in duplicate.
A second series of photographs with shorter exposure, including
stars to the eleventh magnitude, to be made concurrently in order
to form a catalogue and to determine fundamental positions in
the first series.
The photographic telescope to be essentially similar to that
used by MM. Henry.
After receiving the report of the delegates the Council appointed
a deputation to wait on the Prime Minister (Lord Salisbury) and
urge the desirability of this country taking part in this important
undertaking. The deputation was, however, not received, as it
was believed that it would not " lead to any profitable result."
Eventually Greenwich Observatory was provided with a photo-
graphic refractor and enabled to undertake the zone +90 to
+65, while De la Rue generously presented the Oxford University
Observatory with a similar instrument, with which the zone
+31 to +25 Declination has been observed. These two Observa-
tories have long ago finished their share of the Carte du del, but
several zones undertaken elsewhere are not yet completed. As
the Society did nothing further, no more need be said.
The rapid rise of the application of photography has caused
a great demand for negatives for serious study, for lantern slides
for lectures, and prints for more casual examination or wall-decora-
tion. The Society appointed a permanent Photographic Committee
as early as 1887 June ; it has been regularly renewed every year.
To include in our publications any large number of reproductions
* Monthly Notices, 48, 212.
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 215
of the photographs in the possession of the Society was obviously
impossible for financial reasons, but early in 1893 arrangements
were made with Messrs. Eyre & Spottiswoode to copy such photo-
graphs and to sell copies at a fair price. Two years later it was
decided to try as an experiment to let the Society act as a centre
for receiving photographs intended for reproduction and distri-
buting the prints, without being interested financially in the
undertaking. This arrangement has been in force ever since
and has been successfully managed by the Assistant Secretary,
both prints (platinotype or aristotype) and slides being obtainable.
Lists of the photographs in stock (or additions to such) are published
annually in the Council Report. The collection had in 1920
February reached a total of 298 numbers, which looks as if "a
long-felt want " had been filled by this arrangement. At the same
time the pages of the Monthly Notices bear witness to the readiness
of the Council to illustrate papers by a liberal application of
photography whenever desirable.
A good many of the photographs issued are of total eclipses,
and in their production the Society has had an active share.
Though a vast number of eclipse results had been published by the
Society, it had not taken a great part in the organisation of the ex-
peditions. In 1887 the Council were invited by Professor Bredichin
to send two observers to his summer residence near Kineshma,
on the Volga, to observe the eclipse on August 19. The hospitable
offer was accepted by Copeland and Perry on the nomination of
the Council, but unfortunately bad weather prevented any results
being obtained. In 1888 March, when the annual re-appointment
of Committees by the Council took place, it was decided to appoint
an Eclipse Committee. The Council of the Royal Society were
duly notified of this, and the hope was expressed that as most of
the members of the new Committee were already members of the
Committee of the Royal Society, the work of the two bodies would be
much facilitated. In the following year preparations were made
by the R.A.S. Committee for observing the eclipse of 1889 December
21-22, and this eclipse, so far as British expeditions were con-
cerned, was altogether managed by our Society.* An expedition
under Father Perry was sent to Isles du Salut, near Cayenne ;
though very ill he managed to carry out his programme successfully,
but died only five days later. Another expedition to Cape Ledo,
in South Africa, failed altogether owing to bad weather.
Early in 1892, in reply to a letter from the Eclipse Committee,
the Council of the Royal Society very cordially approved of the
suggestion to form a Joint Solar Eclipse Committee. This was
* For full details about the preparations, the facilities granted by the
Foreign Office and the Admiralty, etc., see M.N., 50, 2.
216 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920
done at once, and the Committee thus constituted (which included
the members of the Solar Physics Committee) arranged for observing
the eclipse of 1893 April 16 in West Africa and in Brazil.* In
1894 January the Council of the Royal Society enquired what
the R.A.S. intended to do with regard to the eclipse of 1896, and
whether they would take joint action with the Royal Society
as in 1893. To the suggestion that the Royal Society might
appoint additional members of the R.A.S. Committee the Council
of the senior Society not unnaturally objected. They proposed
instead of this that a permanent Joint Committee should be set
up, having executive powers, electing its own Chairman and
officers, applying on its own authority to the Government Grant
Committee of the Royal Society, and taking care of instruments
purchased out of any grant thus received. This was at once
agreed to, and the permanent Joint Committee held its first
meeting on 1894 May 2. It has existed ever since, the members
being appointed annually in equal numbers (at present eleven)
from each Society, to the great benefit of solar research, as the
preparations for and the observations of total eclipses have been
most efficiently organised. Arrangements were made in 1898 for
the publication of results ; the preliminary reports were printed
in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, and a sufficient number of
copies were supplied to be issued as appendices to the Monthly
Notices at the expense of the R.A.S. Similarly with the final
Reports in the Philosophical Transactions. This arrangement
came, however, to an end in 1906, a subject to which we shall
return when describing the Society's publications.
While thus taking a leading part in organising eclipse
expeditions from this country, the Council continued as in
former years to watch the state of efficiency of the Nautical
Almanac. Hind had been Superintendent since 1853 and held
this post till the end of 1891. Towards the end of this long term
of office he was perhaps somewhat unwilling to make any changes
of importance ; but in 1890 June the Council took the initiative,
probably instigated by a paper read by Tennant two months
earlier. In this paper various changes were advocated, while
attention was called to the limited number of apparent places
of stars, which was much smaller than that of the star lists of the
Berliner Jahrbuch and the Connaissance des Temps. f A Com-
mittee was appointed (including the Superintendent) to report to
the Council as to whether the Society should approach the Admiralty
on the subject. The Committee handed in their report in 1891
June and it was approved by the Council. Among the improve-
ments suggested were : a considerable increase in the number of
* Report in M.N., 53, 472. t MJU. 9 50, 349-
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 217
star places, means to enable a computer to include the short-
period terms of nutation in the star corrections, ephemerides of
satellites as in the American Ephemeris, the beginning of the year
to be taken as the moment when the sun's mean longitude is 280.
The Admiralty were addressed with a view to steps being taken
to carry these modifications into effect ; they were adopted by
the new Superintendent, Downing, beginning with the year 1896.
In 1897 November an alarm was raised at the meeting of the
Council, that the Society had not been consulted about certain
changes introduced in the Nautical Almanac from 1901, in con-
sequence of a conference of directors of national ephemerides,
held at Paris in 1896. A Committee was appointed (including
Downing), which at the meeting in December presented lengthy
Minutes, pointing out that the initiative of the changes in 1834
and 1891 had been taken by the Society. The new changes
included the adoption of new values of astronomical constants
and the use of Newcomb's planetary tables, as well as a catalogue
of more than 400 stars. The Committee considered that these
changes seriously concerned the Society and astronomers in
general, as confusion might result in case the changes were not
adopted everywhere. A copy of this resolution was sent to the
Hydrographer, with an expression of the hope that the Society
was not in danger of losing the privilege of being consulted by the
Admiralty. To this a reply was at once sent, acknowledging
that a mistake had been made, and assuring the Society that
" there was no intention on the part of anyone at the Admiralty
to act otherwise than in accordance with precedent." In a
further letter dated December 23 the Admiralty asked the opinion
of the Council, as there was a divergence of opinion between the
Astronomer Royal on the one hand and H.M. Astronomer at
the Cape and the Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac on
the other, as to adopting the resolutions of the Paris Conference.
My Lords were much impressed with the value of the system
of international exchange of certain calculations, which, they
understood, would be much facilitated by the adoption of the
same data.*
The appointment of another Committee was the result of this
communication. They advised, that since the changes had
already been introduced in the Nautical Almanac for 1901, they
might be provisionally continued in the volume for 1902, pending
a fuller consideration of the matter. This report was adopted
by the Council, recommending that all necessary data for reducing
* This system of dividing a considerable portion of the computing between
the various national ephemerides was further elaborated at a conference in
Paris in 1911 October. Cf. M.N., 72, 342.
2i8 mSTORY OF THE [1880-1920
to the Struve-Peters constants be given in an appendix up to
the end of 1906.
An abstract of the Nautical Almanac, called Part I., " containing
such portions as are essential for navigation," had been published
at the request of the Shipmasters' Society, the earliest one being
for the year 1896 ; price one shilling. This little almanac contained
the monthly part of the big one unaltered, so as to save the expense
of setting up the type afresh, though this involved giving sailors
various things they did not want. Also the noon-ephemerides
for Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, the eclipse section, and a
few other items. Though most useful to sailors, it was felt that
this publication was capable of improvement. In 1910 October
the Admiralty therefore addressed the Council of the Society,
pointing out that the necessity of frequently checking the position
of a ship by observations was generally recognised, and that it was
thought that the labour of computing should be still further
reduced, while matter of no use to the seaman should be got rid
of. A Committee was appointed, including Mr. Cowell, who
had not long before succeeded to the post of Superintendent on
the retirement for age of Mr. Downing. This Committee reported
in 1911 February. In their recommendations the general prin-
ciple was followed of only giving the data to that degree of accuracy
which can be made practical use of in the best observations at sea.
This was taken as o s -i and o'-i, with variation in one hour to
o s -oi and o'-oi respectively, though some exceptions to this rule
were made. The right ascension of the mean sun, the declination
of the sun, and the equation of time to be given for every two
hours, so that no interpolation would be necessary.
These alterations were carried out from 1914.* In this new
" Part I." almost nothing is taken unaltered from the real Nautical
Almanac except the data referring to eclipses.
At the Annual General Meeting in 1911 February, Gill, after
delivering the Presidential Address on presenting the Gold Medal
to Dr. P. H. Cowell for his contributions to the Lunar Theory and
Gravitational Astronomy, delivered a second address on some
points connected with the subject-matter of the first one.f After
considering which kind of observations of the moon are particularly
wanted for the improvement of the Lunar Theory, and which
might be discontinued, he turned to the subject of the Nautical
Almanac office. He pointed out, that whereas two out of the
three great subdivisions of Astronomy, astrometry and astro-
physics, are dealt with in the two national observatories adminis-
tered under the Admiralty, the study of the third subdivision,
* For further particulars see The Observatory, 35, 245.
t M.N., 71, 380-385.
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 219
astrodynamics, is not provided for in any national establishment
in this country. The functions of the Nautical Almanac office
are limited to the more or less mechanical production of the
Nautical Almanac ; but in the working out of the mathematical
theories of sun, moon, and planets, or in the building up of tables
on the basis of such theories, that institution takes no part whatever.
And yet the ephemerides in the Nautical Almanac are computed
from these tables. As the Nautical Almanac office was now in
charge of a very distinguished worker in astrodynamics, the
medallist of that day, it was more than ever desirable that this
country should not be left entirely behind in these matters, but that
an additional assistant of high mathematical attainments and a
couple of computers be added to the existing staff of the office.
Gill was very much in earnest and was not content with merely
throwing out a suggestion. In May of the same year (1911) he
brought the matter before the Council of our Society. A small
Committee was appointed, from which a report was received in
1912 January. This followed very much the same lines as Gill's
address, referring to the brilliant work of Newcomb in the office
of the American Ephemeris,* and to the Lunar Tables founded on
Delaunay's theory, recently brought out by the Bureau des Longi-
tudes. The Committee repeated the proposal made by Gill as to
the enlargement of the Nautical Almanac office. But the matter
got no further ; Gill died in 1914 January, and six months later
came the deluge. It is very much to be hoped that this question
may be reopened under favourable conjunctures.
While on the subject of gravitational Astronomy we may refer
to a piece of work initiated by the Council and carried out under
its general supervision. In the Greenwich Observations for 1859,
places of the moon from Hansen's tables were given for midnight
of every day on which the moon had been observed at Greenwich,
from 1847 to 1858. The comparison of these places with those
of the Nautical Almanac gave the excess of Hansen's places over
those of Burckhardt, and it was assumed that this might be
adopted without sensible error for the time of observation, so that
the differences of Hansen's places and the observed places might
be found thereby. The procedure was, however, not strictly
correct, as the change of the quantity H B in the course of some
hours was by no means always insensible. It seemed, therefore,
desirable to make the calculation of the differences H B more
* In 1897 January, when Newcomb was about to retire from the office of
Superintendent of the American Ephemeris, the Council passed a resolution
to the effect that they had learned with great regret of the possibility of his
work on planetary tables and the lunar theory being interrupted, and desired
to put on record their sense of the great importance to Astronomy of the com-
pletion of this work. A copy of this resolution was sent to Newcomb.
220 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920
complete by computing places by Hansen's tables for mean mid-
night of every day during the years 1847-61, after which time
Hansen's tables were used in the Nautical Almanac. Knowing
thus H B for every midnight, interpolation would give that
quantity for the actual time of every observation, and thus the
determination of the apparent error of Hansen's tables could be
completed. The expense of these computations was met by a
grant of 320 from the Government Grant Committee of the
Royal Society, and the results were published as an appendix to
volume 50 of the Monthly Notices (1890).
There are, of course, various kinds of ephemerides which can
never find a place in the Nautical Almanac, nor in any similar
publication. For a number of years, Marth had occasionally
published ephemerides of satellites or for physical observations
of the moon and the major planets. In 1882 June he was engaged
by the Council to prepare such ephemerides regularly every year
for publication in the Monthly Notices. This arrangement ter-
minated in 1891, when the Council expressed their regret that
they did not see their way to continue it any longer, but hoped that
Marth would communicate the data on which his ephemerides
had been computed. This, however, he declared himself unable
to do at the time, but announced his readiness to continue the
ephemerides without remuneration ; and he did in fact supply
continuations of most of them till his death in 1897. From 1898
till 1906 similar ephemerides were published by Mr. Crommelin.
At the Paris Conference in 1911 it was resolved that ephemerides
relative to the physical observations of the sun, moon, and planets
should be calculated by the American Ephemeris, and this has
been carried out from 1916.
The computation of ephemerides is often the first step taken
after the announcement of an astronomical discovery, and it is
therefore natural in this place to allude to the arrangements made
for the rapid distribution of news of discoveries. The first attempt
at such in this country was made by the late Lord Crawford,
from whose Observatory the " Dun Echt Circulars " were issued
from 1879 to 1889. Similar circulars were sent out by our Society
in 1880-82, about fifteen in all. When the " Centralstelle " for
the despatch of astronomical telegrams was started at Kiel, it
was suggested to let the Society act as an intermediate station
for this country, but this was found to be impracticable and was
never carried out. The central office at Kiel continued to have
charge of this matter until the war put an end to its activity.
In 1919 the International Astronomical Union established a central
bureau for astronomical telegrams at the Brussels Observatory.
While the observatories in the United Kingdom, as a rule,
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 221
do not require to appeal for support to the Council of the Society,
the case is different with those situated in the southern hemi-
sphere. In some ways their responsibilities are greater ; they are
very few in number, and the field of work open to them is an
immense one, while some of them are dependent on local bodies
for their very existence. This is, of course, not the case with the
Cape Observatory, which as a Royal Observatory is only dependent
on the Home Government, while Gill seems always to have been
persona grata with the Admiralty, and to have understood the
art of loosening the purse-strings. Yet even he found it on one
occasion desirable to ask for the support of the Council. In 1892
he strongly urged the desirability of a Board of Visitors of the
Cape Observatory being constituted, to meet once a year in London,
and to consist of six members. He enlisted the sympathy of
Lord Kelvin, at that time President of the Royal Society, who
suggested that the Council of the R.A.S. should make a repre-
sentation to the Admiralty on the subject. This was not the
first time such a Board had been thought of. In consequence of
the defective state of the Paramatta Observatory, Airy wrote to
Sir Robert Peel in 1846 April, raising the question of a General
Superintending Board for Colonial Observatories in order to
maintain them in a creditable state. The Council now, in 1892
November, passed a resolution, embodying that passed by the
Greenwich Board of Visitors in 1846 : that the Admiralty be
urged to enlarge the powers of the Greenwich Board, extending
them to the Cape Observatory by constituting a Committee
(including the Astronomer Royal) to require reports from H.M.
Astronomer, and making suggestions to the Government, in order
to give greater unity to the work done at Greenwich and at the
Cape.
This was duly sent to the Admiralty with the concurrence of
Lord Kelvin. Nothing had come of the proposal in 1846, and
nothing came of it now ; the Admiralty replying that they did
not see the use of a Board which could never visit the Observatory.
Gill was, however, empowered in future to refer to the Council
of the R.A.S. for its support in connection with any important
proposals. Annual reports were to be prepared by him in future.
The remarkably great accuracy of the heliometer observations
of the minor planet Victoria in 1889 appeared to Gill to show
that the time had arrived when astronomers should reconsider
their methods of determining the positions of the planets. In the
case of Victoria, the highest precision had only been required in
the relative positions of the comparison stars to each other and of
the planet to the stars. But for determining absolute positions
of planets, we require in addition a fundamental system of star-
222 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920
places ultimately based on observations of the sun, and here the
elimination of systematic errors is of vital importance. In a
paper published in volume 54 of the Monthly Notices (p. 344,
1894 April), Gill discussed various points connected with this
subject and asked whether steps should be taken for a more
complete organisation of astronomical work, and whether it was
desirable to hold an international congress to make preliminary
arrangements. This paper was considered at two meetings of
the Council in 1894, and various astronomers at home and abroad
were consulted. In the end it was decided that it was not advisable
for the Society to convene a congress on astronomy of precision.
In the endeavours made from time to time during recent
years to put the Australian Observatories on a more satisfactory
footing and to establish an Observatory for solar research in New
Zealand, the Society has not been called upon for advice or support.
The question has also been raised whether a Solar Observatory
ought to be established in Australia, and the advocates of this
movement took advantage of the presence in Australia of members
of the British expedition to observe the eclipse of 1911 April n
in the Tonga Islands, to call attention to the subject. Father
Cortie, chief of the expedition, visited and reported very favourably
on a proposed site.* A joint deputation of the British Association
and the Royal Astronomical Society tried to take advantage of
the presence in London of Mr. Fisher, Premier of the Common-
wealth, but though he was unavoidably prevented from receiving
them, they interviewed another member of his Cabinet and pointed
out the importance for solar research of filling the gap in longitude,
which could only be obviated by an Australian Solar Observatory.
The excellent climatic conditions were also emphasised. (
Solar research in another favourable locality outside Europe
has also been encouraged by the Society. In 1915, when Mr.
Evershed undertook his first expedition to Kashmir to investigate
the suitability of the climatic conditions for solar work, the Council
was willing to co-operate by joining the Indian Government in
sending out an independent observer of distinction. But as he
was unable to be absent from his post for the necessary length of
time, the proposal fell through.
The help of the Council was invoked in 1905 on the trouble-
some subject of lunar nomenclature. In his third paper on the
determination of selenographical positions,! Saunder drew atten-
* The Observatory, 34, 360.
f Since this account was sent to the printer, the welcome news has been
received that a Solar Observatory has been sanctioned by the Government,
and the appointment of a Director is imminently expected.
J Memoirs, 57, 47. For a fuller statement of the difficulties see Monthly
Notices, 60, 41.
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 223
tion to the utter insufficiency of the system hitherto used. Lunar
formations were distinguished either by separate names or by
the names of adjacent formations with a letter added. But the
limits of the districts to which the particular names should apply
had never been clearly denned, so that it often happened that
when a letter is found on a map it was difficult to determine to
which of several names it should be attached. Again, many
selenographers considered themselves entitled to add fresh names
to the map, and as there was no recognised authority, it had hap-
pened that the same name has been given to two different forma-
tions, or that the same formation had received two different
names. It was therefore resolved by the Council (on the motion
of Professor Turner) that an International Committee on Lunar
Nomenclature was desirable, and that the Council would learn
with satisfaction that the International Association of Academies
would be prepared to appoint one. Saunder's representations
were also supported by the Royal Society and reached the Inter-
national Association at its meeting at Vienna in 1907, when a
Committee on Lunar Nomenclature was appointed. Of the work
done by this Committee this is not the place to speak, but two
publications instigated by it (Die Randlandschaften des Mondes,
by Franz, and the Collated List of Lunar Formations, by Miss
Blagg) show how opportune the appointment of the Committee
had been. It was further determined to make an accurate map
of the moon as a vehicle for the authoritative names, the inner
portions of which were drawn by the skilful hands of Mr. Wesley,
our Assistant Secretary. The outer portions were to have been
drawn by Franz ; since his death they have been drawn by
Miss Blagg, to Mr. Wesley's entire satisfaction.
Geodesy being closely connected with astronomical work, it
is natural that the Council should be warmly interested in the
geodetic operations carried on in this country. In 1904 May
attention was drawn by Major Hills to the alleged inferiority of
English geodetic measures to those of neighbouring parts of the
continent ; and it was proposed that the Council should take
steps to obtain a reobservation of a geodetic arc in this country.
A resolution was passed a month later, stating that the Council
felt strongly the need of meridional and longitudinal arcs being
remeasured in the United Kingdom. The question was again
brought forward by Major Hills at the York meeting of the British
Association in 1906 ; and again at the Dublin meeting in 1908
there was a discussion on the proposed remeasurement. Soon
after, Major Close * suggested to the Council of the Association
that, before definitely accepting the view that the linear errors
* Director-General of the Ordnance Survey, 1911-1922.
224 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920
of the British triangulation rendered a remeasurement desirable,
it would be well to measure a base and remeasure a portion of the
old triangulation remote from the principal bases at Salisbury
Plain and Lough Foyle, in order to ascertain in a previously
untested region what linear errors had accumulated. This was
approved by the Council of the Association, and on its recommenda-
tion the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries authorised the Ordnance
Survey to undertake the work. It was carried out in the years
1909 to 1912, and consisted in the measurement of a base on the
southern shore of the Moray Firth, east of the town of Lossie-
mouth, and a test triangulation in Morayshire.* The investiga-
tion of these measurements showed that the linear errors of the
old net-work triangulation of the United Kingdom are in the same
terms as those to be expected in modern triangulation carried out
in chains over similar distances. The error to be expected may
be said to be of the order of one inch in one mile. The dis-
cussion showed that the excellent agreement between the measured
and computed values of the bases at Lough Foyle and Salisbury
Plain was not accidental, but is confirmed by the inter-comparisons
of these bases with those measured at Paris and at Lossiemouth.
These comparisons give results which are in some cases better
and in some cases worse than those derived from modern work
in Europe, India, South Africa, and the United States. The
influence on modern figures of the earth of any remeasurement
of the British arcs would be insignificant.
In 1907 a large surveying party was making a topographical
survey of the area north of the German territory in Central Africa,
near the Equator, along the 30th meridian. In April of that
year Gill wrote to the Council that it was very important to retain
this party for four months longer, in order to make a reconnaisance
for the measurement of a geodetic arc of 2^ along the 30th meri-
dian, forming part of the great African arc. The Berlin Academy
had approached the German Government for funds to continue
the arc east of Lake Tanganyika, which proposal (Gill suggested)
would be much strengthened if it could be shown that work had
been commenced north of the German territory. It was therefore
proposed that the Council should give 50, to be added to 950
from the Royal Geographical Society, the British Association,
and the Royal Society, after which the Government would be asked
for another 1000. This was willingly agreed to by the Council.
Eventually it turned out that owing to unfavourable weather the
cost was nearly twice as great as estimated, and the Council in
1910 paid 25 towards covering the deficiency.
* Ordnance Survey, Professional Papers, new series, Nos. i and 2. London,
1912-13, 4.
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 225
In this connection we may mention another case, where the
Society threw its influence in the scales to further the promotion
of an object associated with Geodesy. In 1903 March, Chandler
addressed a letter to the Council, urging the desirability of estab-
lishing a southern belt of stations for the observation of variation
of latitude. The Observatories at Sydney and the Cape being
almost in the same latitude (differing only 4') would furnish two
stations for the investigation of Kimura's term, while a third one
should be set up thirty miles south of Santiago.* The Council
at once declared themselves much impressed with the importance
of establishing a belt of southern latitude stations for two years.
It appears, however, that the Central International Geodetic
Bureau had already in 1896, six years before Mr. Kimura announced
his new term, recommended that latitude observations be made
on the parallel of Sydney. Eventually two stations were
set up on the parallel 3i55', in West Australia and the
Argentine.
Nearly at the end of the first century of its existence the
Council was called upon to give an opinion on a subject of great
importance, the commencement of the astronomical day. It
was not the first time that this question had been laid before
them. Since the days of Ptolemy astronomers had counted their
day from noon, without the rest of the world being aware, that
here was an intolerable grievance which ought to be redressed.
But at the Washington Prime Meridian Conference in 1884 it was
resolved among other things, " almost without debate, certainly
without adequate consideration," says Newcomb, f that the
astronomical day ought to begin at midnight like the civil one.
This resolution, however, met with very little support outside the
Conference. In a paper printed in the Monthly Notices in the fol-
lowing January, Newcomb expressed himself very strongly against
the proposed change, chiefly on account of the discontinuity
it would introduce into astronomical tables and ephemerides,{
and at the Geneva meeting of the Astronomische Gesellschaft in
1885 August he did the same. As he was Editor of the American
Ephemeris, his vote was of great practical importance, apart
from the weight any utterance of his would naturally carry. Of
prominent Continental astronomers, Otto Struve and Oppolzer ||
seem to have been the only ones in favour of the proposed
change.
The matter came before the Council of our Society in 1885 June,
when a letter from the Science and Art Department was read,
* M.N., 63, 294. f Reminiscences of an Astronomer, p. 227.
J M .N., 44, 122. Vierteljahrsschrift d. a. G., 20, 228.
|| M.N., 44, 295-
15
226 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920
stating that the Committee of Council on Education had asked a
Committee (including Adams, Christie, and Hind) to advise them.
In accordance with the recommendations of this Committee a
copy of the resolutions of the Washington Conference was now
forwarded, " which My Lords consider to commend themselves
for adoption." It was resolved on the motion of Christie that the
Council of the R.A.S. concurred in those resolutions, and proposed
that the change be adopted in the Nautical Almanac for 1890.*
But the opposition had been too strong, and it was probably
realised that no other ephemeris would follow the example of the
Nautical Almanac. The matter was therefore dropped and nothing
more was heard of it for many years.
In 1917 attention was again drawn to the fact that the system
hitherto in use was by many sailors found to be a fruitful source
of error, and in 1918 January the Admiralty addressed a letter to
the Society, requesting them to ascertain the views of astronomers
about changing the commencement of the astronomical day.
A Committee was appointed and reported in the following Novem-
ber. Of seventeen replies received to a circular, nine were decidedly
in favour of the change, three decidedly against it, five not very
decided. A specially important favourable reply had been re-
ceived from the American Astronomical Society, who had consulted
four observatories and eighteen individuals ; the result was three
votes to one in favour of the change. The Committee recommended
the .change to be made in the Nautical Almanac from 1925, and
their Report was adopted by the Council. The Admiralty have
accepted this decision, and as the Connaissance des Temps and
the American Ephemeris will make the change from the same
date, astronomers are now committed to this innovation, for better
for worse.
Among undertakings which have to be carried out by inter-
national co-operation, the cataloguing of scientific literature must
of necessity be one, on account of the enormous mass of papers
published annually. In 1895 December the Royal Society in-
formed the R.A.S. Council that they had been requested by their
International Catalogue Committee to arrange that each paper
in the Philosophical Transactions and Proceedings should be
accompanied by a statement of its contents, which would serve
for use in the preparation of a subject-index. This plan was
never adopted by our Society, but correspondence on the subject
was carried on from time to time with the Royal Society. [At
* Airy apparently did not concur, as he wrote to Newcomb (no date
given) : "I hope you will succeed in having its adoption postponed until 1900,
and when 1900 comes, I hope you will further succeed in having it again
postponed until the year 2000." (Newcomb, Reminiscences, p. 227).
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 227
last, in 1900, the Council agreed to take part in an international
catalogue ; but the schedule of classification, about which the
Council had not been consulted, was modified by a Committee
appointed for the purpose. It was also decided that the cataloguing
of British astronomical literature should be done by one person
with assistance from an Advisory Committee, and that he
should be paid 30 a year from the Society's funds. This was
accordingly done from 1901 to 1914 inclusive, when the arrange-
ment was discontinued. Early in 1918 a letter was received from
the Conjoint Board of Scientific Societies, enquiring whether
the Society would be prepared to co-operate in forming the astro-
nomical section of a proposed subject catalogue of scientific
literature, as it was more practicable for this to be done by a single
country than by an international organisation. But the Council
decided that the value of a subject-index was not sufficiently
great to justify the considerable expense it would involve, and
that the Council was therefore not prepared to undertake the
work.
We may mention here that the Conjoint Board was organised
in 1916 for the purpose of promoting co-operation in appealing
to the Government on matters relating to science, industry, and
education. Our Society agreed to join as one of the constituent
societies, and was represented on the Board by two members
till 1922 April, when the Council decided to withdraw from the
Board.
But the Society is much more intimately associated with
another co-operative organisation established in 1917. A strong
Committee was appointed by the British Association to arrange
for meetings for discussion of the various branches of geophysics.
It was felt that though this subject is closely connected with
several important sciences, there is not any Society in this country
for promoting its interests or bringing workers on geophysical
subjects into contact with each other. The first meeting was
held in the rooms of our Society on Wednesday, 1917 November 7,
when the Chair was taken by the Astronomer Royal.* He pointed
out that the sciences concerned covered a wide field ; progress
in several depended to some extent upon public departments
as well as upon the private investigator, and there was a danger
that the latter might not be acquainted with what was being
done by the former. It was hoped that these meetings would
keep scientific interest alive in the work done on these subjects,
and keep workers in touch with researches in geophysics in various
parts of the British Empire, much of which was published only
in official reports. A further service the meetings would perform
* See report in The Observatory, 40, 444.
228 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920
would be to enable workers in one branch of geophysics to obtain
a general knowledge of the other branches.
These meetings have been continued five or six times during
the session, the subjects discussed being magnetism, constitution
of the atmosphere, aurora, geodesy, seismology, the earth's
interior, etc. At the meeting of the Council in 1919 March a
Memorandum was read from the Geophysical Committee of the
British Association with reference to the R.A.S. taking over the
arrangement of these meetings. They are to be considered
additional meetings under Bye-Laws, section VIII A,* and are to
be in charge of a Geophysical Committee appointed by the Council.
The following Societies were invited to associate themselves with
the meetings by making them known to their members and by
each proposing one representative for appointment to the Geo-
physical Committee : R. Geographical, R. Meteorological, Geo-
logical, Physical Societies, and the British Astronomical Association.
The Royal Astronomical Society now from time to time issues
supplementary Monthly Notices on geophysical subjects at the
discretion of the Council.
Though not directly connected with the Society, we cannot
close this short account of its work during the last forty years
without greeting with pleasure the birth of a new international
organisation for the advancement of Astronomy, in which our
Society is officially represented. As the various international
scientific associations had become inoperative during the war,
conferences of delegates of the leading Academies of the nations
at war with the Central Powers resolved in 1918 October and
November that new organisations should be established, which
representatives of neutral nations might eventually be invited to
join. A further conference of delegates was held at Brussels in
1919 July, when the " International Research Council " was
constituted. The formation of international unions for Astronomy
and Geophysics, decided on at the previous conferences, was
completed, and statutes for them were agreed to. In each of
the countries participating, a National Committee for the pro-
motion of astronomical work and for nominating delegates to the
meetings of the astronomical union is formed, and on the one
representing this country the R.A.S. appoints six members. The
work of the " Union Astronomique Internationale " is to be
carried on through various Committees, each having its own
Chairman. Under the statutes, the Chairman and members of
these Committees are elected by the General Assembly of Dele-
gates, but each Committee has power to add to its number and
to draw up its own regulations, subject to approval by the General
* Addition to the bye-laws passed 1918 June 14 (M.N., 78, 544).
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 229
Assembly. General meetings of the Astronomical Union are as
a rule to be held every three years, and the first was held at
Rome in 1922.
Every worker in Astronomy will earnestly hope that this
international organisation will succeed in its principal purpose,
to facilitate the relations between astronomers of different coun-
tries where international co-operation may be necessary or useful.
II
When the Society was founded, most people dined at or about
five o'clock and had tea about nine o'clock. It was therefore
natural that the ordinary meetings were held at eight o'clock,
and that the Fellows had an informal meeting with tea afterwards,
about ten o'clock. For some (now unknown) reason the Annual
General Meeting in February began at three o'clock. The hour
of dinner which had been in constant motion since the Middle
Ages (when it was noon or n a.m.) continued to move on and
changed place with the tea hour ; but the Astronomical Society
stuck to the eight o'clock rule. In the days of stage-coaches
country members probably did not find this inconvenient, as they
could not in any case get home the same evening. But when
railways came and trains multiplied, complaints began to be
heard from people living at a distance from town. Early in the
eighties the Royal Society changed its hour of meeting to half-
past four, and soon after that the Fellows of our Society who were
anxious for a change began to make their voices heard. At the
Annual General Meeting in 1885, Mr. Sydney Waters proposed
that the ordinary meetings should commence at five o'clock.
In addition to the convenience this would be to country members
it was pointed out that it was impossible to attend both the meet-
ings of our Society and those of the Royal Institution. The
opposition maintained that many people were engaged during the
day and would not be free as early as five o'clock ; and several
speakers then and during subsequent discussions said that the
faces seen at the Annual Meetings (at three o'clock) were different
from those seen at the ordinary meetings at eight o'clock, which
was supposed to show that many members would not be able to
come in the late afternoon. But the best trump card was con-
sidered to be, that the Council would not be able to get through
their work before the meeting ; and whenever there was also a
meeting of the Library Committee, the case would become quite
hopeless. As it was also denied by some, that there was a suffi-
ciently general desire for a change to warrant an alteration of
the Bye-Laws, it was finally decided to send out post-cards
230 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920
to all the Fellows, asking their opinion. The result of the
voting was :
In favour of 8 o'clock . . 104
5 > ^^5
Neutral ..... 149
Preferring some other hour . 16
394
At a Special General Meeting, called chiefly for another purpose
in the following May, the resolution that the ordinary meetings
be held at five o'clock was put and lost.
The question was next brought forward at the Annual Meeting
in 1890, as a motion that business should commence at four o'clock.
After some discussion it was decided to defer the question for
further consideration by the Council. At their meeting in April,
the Council resolved not to give an opinion as to the hour of
meeting, but they put it on record, that if the ordinary meeting
were held not earlier than half-past four, they would have time
to finish their own business before it. A Special Meeting was held
in the following December to consider a proposal by Mr. Chambers,
that for a period of one year the meetings be held at half-past four.
As a Bye-Law could obviously not be altered for a limited period,
leave was given to withdraw the words " for the period of one year,"
but even though the hour of half-past four was amended to
five o'clock, the altered resolution was rejected. All the same,
Mr. Chambers brought it forward again in the following February,
when it was again lost, but this time only by four votes
(35 to 31).
The motion next came before the Society at the Annual Meeting
of 1894, when it was again negatived, although the Council acknow-
ledged that the change would not interfere with their business.
The question was then allowed to rest till 1900, when a Fellow
sent in a notice in January ; and as it appeared doubtful whether
it had been received a month before the Annual Meeting (as
required by the Bye-Laws), it was made a motion of the Council,
without expressing any opinion on it. The discussion was very
full and animated, and an additional argument was drawn from
the fact that the British Astronomical Association met in the
afternoon and seemed to prosper. From the way in which the
motion was brought forward, Mr. Knobel inferred that its object
was rather to elucidate the opinion of the Fellows than with the
idea of taking a vote on it. He therefore moved the previous
question, which eventually was carried. Many Fellows who
voted for this were probably influenced by their regard for the
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 231
incoming President, who had always spoken strongly against the
change.
But a year later, in 1901 February, when the Council brought
forward the motion that the hour of meeting should be five o'clock,
it was carried by a large majority, and this long-debated question
was at last disposed of. A natural consequence was, that after
the lapse of another year it was resolved that the Annual General
Meeting should also commence at five o'clock.*
Looking back now after twenty years, it is difficult to put
oneself in the place of the strenuous opponents of the change.
The meetings seem to be as well attended as before, and the
afternoon tea between half-past four and five o'clock has quite
naturally taken the place of the tea at 10 p.m., which was very
much out of date. And the fear that the Council would not be
able to get through its work by five o'clock, has proved to be
groundless. The Council meets generally at three o'clock, or,
if there is a press of business, at half-past two, and has always
finished by half-past four. And while formerly the Council in
February had to meet a week before the Annual Meeting, it is now
able to meet on the day of this meeting at the usual hour.f
Another Bye-Law which was felt as a grievance by many
Fellows living at a distance, was the one (No. 12) which prevented
them from giving their votes at the election of the Council, unless
they were present at the Annual Meeting and personally handed in
their voting paper. At the meeting of the Council in 1885 March a
letter was read, signed by 118 Fellows, asking that the Bye-Laws
might be altered so as to allow Fellows to vote by proxy at the
Annual Meeting. The Council decided not to recommend this ;
but they were of opinion that voting by post might fitly form a
subject of discussion at a Special General Meeting. Soon after,
eight Fellows sent in a demand for a Special Meeting to consider
an addition to Bye-Law 12, to the effect that ballot papers of
absent Fellows be accepted if signed, and another addition to
Bye-Law 53, that Fellows may vote at Annual Meetings personally
or by proxy.
A Special General Meeting was therefore summoned for May 8,
after the ordinary meeting. At this Lord Crawford moved that
a balloting list " handed to the Scrutineers of the ballot on behalf
of any Fellow not present at the meeting, shall be accepted if
duly verified by the signature of the absent Fellow." It was,
however, pointed out by the President (Dunkin) on behalf of the
Council, that it was not desirable that country Fellows should
* By an oversight this is not mentioned in the Monthly Notices, 52, 218.
f The R.A.S. dinner club now dines after, instead of before, the meetings,
which is also more in accordance with modern customs.
232 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920
send their lists through another Fellow ; also that it ought not
to be signed, but that it should be sent by post under cover of a.
letter signed by the absent Fellow. After some discussion the
addition to Bye-Law 12 was passed by a large majority in the
following form : " Any List addressed and posted to the Scrutineers
of the Ballot by any Fellow not present at the meeting shall be
accepted, if duly verified by the signature of the absent Fellow
on the envelope." A second resolution, that Fellows may vote
by proxy on the business brought before an Annual or a Special
General Meeting, was lost by a small majority, and has not since
been brought forward.
Among the Fellows living at a distance and, therefore, unable
to give their votes personally, there has always been a small
number of foreigners residing outside the United Kingdom. In
1894 May the President ruled that foreign Fellows are eligible as
Associates, and that they would not be debarred from any right
which they held by virtue of their Fellowship. Six months later
he stated that he had obtained an informal legal opinion as to
foreigners being elected Fellow r s, to the effect that in view of its
having been the custom of the Society for a considerable time,
they could not now be considered ineligible. In this the Council
concurred. A curious consequence of having foreign Fellows is,
that a foreign astronomer of distinction, who is already a Fellow,
is occasionally elected an Associate, and yet (if he has compounded)
continues to remain a Fellow.*
Another question in which all Fellows were equally interested
was that of the composition fee. Since 1831 a Fellow who had
paid his admission fee of two guineas might compound for his
annual contributions by a payment of twenty guineas ; and no
matter how many annual payments he had made, he had still to
pay twenty guineas if he wished to compound. Though it was
manifestly unfair, this arrangement remained in force for over
seventy years. In 1895 the Treasurer announced to the Council
that he was going to propose the raising of the composition fee to
thirty guineas, with the proviso that a Fellow who had paid
thirty-five annual contributions should be considered to have
compounded. But he withdrew the proposal before it was laid
before a meeting. Two years later a distinguished astronomer
resigned his Fellowship after paying contributions for about
forty years. Even this did not for a couple of years produce
any effect, until the Treasurer in 1902 was directed to draw up a
memorandum on the subject. This resulted in the following
* On the other hand Briinnow, an Associate, was in 1865 appointed Royal
Astronomer of Ireland, and had (in 1869) to be elected a Fellow, while his
name was omitted from the list of Associates.
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 233
alteration of Bye-Law 23, which was proposed by the Council
and passed at the Annual Meeting in 1903 :
That the composition fee be raised to thirty guineas, and be
reduced by one guinea each year after five years to a minimum of
five guineas.
While on the subject of the annual contributions, we may
mention that formerly the Council had no discretion to deal with
cases of Fellows who were three years in arrear with their sub-
scriptions, but had to expel them. It happened, of course, occa-
sionally that a man got into financial difficulties without any
fault of his, in which case it was felt to be very hard to have to deal
severely with him. It was therefore proposed by the Council,
and passed unanimously at the Annual Meeting in 1900, that
if in such a case a Fellow should desire to resign his Fellowship,
it shall be in the power of the Council to remit the whole or any
portion of his arrears by a special vote in which at least two-thirds
of those present and voting shall concur.*
During the war many Fellows found great difficulty in paying
their subscriptions. It was thought that some discretion should
be allowed to the Treasurer in dealing with such cases. At a
Special General Meeting, held on 1917 June 8, an addition to Bye-
Law 26 was therefore passed. By it, any Fellow who was on active
naval or military service might be excused from payment of his
annual contribution until the end of the year following that in which
peace was declared. After that he could either resume his Fellow-
ship or resign it without any liability for arrears of subscription.
The general upheaval caused by the war brought about a
reform in the constitution of the Society, which had been talked
of privately for a long time without being formally proposed
the admission of women as Fellows. When the British Astro-
nomical Association was founded in 1890, women were at once
admitted as members. But the lead thus given was not taken up,
although the subject had been before the Council as early as 1886.
In November of that year, Miss Pogson, of the Madras Observa-
tory, was duly nominated for Fellowship by three Fellows. Before
ordering her name to be suspended for election, the Council thought
it well to obtain Counsel's opinion on the admission of women.
Mr. Ranyard reported, that unless it could be shown that a woman
could not consistently exercise the rights and perform the duties
of a Fellow, the Council could be compelled to allow the name of
a woman to be suspended for election. But when a second opinion
was called for, it was to the effect, that regard being had to the
social habits of the time when the Charter was granted, female
* Accidentally omitted from the report of the meeting, M.N., 60, 295.
234 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1922
Fellows were not likely to have been in contemplation ; and as
the masculine pronoun is used throughout, they must be taken
as not included. The Council, however, decided that Miss Pogson's
name should be suspended, so as to forward it to the general body
of Fellows to be dealt with by them as they thought fit. In
voting adversely there could be nothing personal, as it would be
understood to mean that the question should first be considered
by a General Meeting. Miss Pogson's proposers thought so too,
and withdrew her name.
Again in 1892 three ladies were proposed for election and the
Council adopted the same procedure, but this time the proposers
did not shrink from the ballot. It was taken at the April meeting *
and resulted in the three ladies failing to obtain the requisite
three-fourths of the votes given.
The matter was now allowed to rest for many years. A mild
plaister was offered to the possibly wounded feelings of the ladies
a few months after their rejection. It was resolved by the Council
that the President be authorised to issue cards of admission to the
meetings " to such persons as it may be thought desirable to admit,"
available for one season (November to June) ; the President to
submit a list, and one-third of all the members of the Council to
be sufficient to veto a name. This system worked very well, and
was continued as long as ladies were ineligible for Fellowship.
At last the matter was settled in 1915. At the Annual General
Meeting the Council proposed that the Meeting should approve
of the admission of women as Fellows and Associates, and that it
should request the Council to take the necessary steps to render
their election possible. It was explained that enquiries had been
made at the Crown Office and the Privy Council Office. A draft
petition to the King in Council and a draft Supplemental Charter
had been prepared, the forms of which had been approved by the
Privy Council Office. The expense would be about 100. During
the discussion which followed, not a single voice was raised against
the proposal. It was pointed out that a few years only after
the foundation of the Society, Caroline Herschel had been elected
an Honorary Member ; she was soon followed by Mary Somerville,
and later by Miss Sheepshanks (a benefactress of the Society),
Lady Huggins, Miss Agnes Clerke, and Miss Cannon. The resolu-
tion was passed by fifty-nine votes to three. At the meeting in
the following November it was announced from the Chair that
the Supplementary Charter had been received. The first lady-
candidates for Fellowship were balloted for and duly elected at
the meeting in 1916 January.
* After some would-be facetious remarks by a Fellow about getting a
piano and a fiddle, dancing through most of the papers, etc.
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 235
We have only to record one other attempt to effect a consider-
able change in the Bye-Laws. This was made on four different
occasions by the late Mr. Ranyard, and the object was to stop the
presentation of Gold Medals. He first entered the lists at the
Annual Meeting in 1886, when he moved that Bye-Laws 71 to 76,
referring to the medal, be repealed. This met with no sympathy,
and the arguments adduced by Mr. Ranyard were very few and
trivial, being mainly that the giving of medals was wrong in prin-
ciple and that three whole Council meetings were given up to the
discussion as to who was to have the medal. This, by the way,
is not the case, as there is only discussion at one meeting, and
then it does not take up the whole time. Only three members
voted for the motion.
The next year Mr. Ranyard tried his luck again, but this time
he went on a different tack. He merely moved that no medal be
given " unless the nominee selected be a foreign astronomer
not resident in Great Britain." His principal arguments were :
first, that the Society should not give rewards to its own members,
but should be " above suspicion, like Caesar's wife " ; and secondly,
that it might do a man a great deal of harm to be always hoping
for distinctions and feeling disappointed if he did not get them.
In support of this he quoted some anecdotes from Arago's Bio-
graphies. But he failed completely to carry the meeting with him,
and equally unlucky was an amendment proposed, that no member
of the Council should receive the medal.
Nothing daunted, Mr. Ranyard came back again in 1888
February with his original motion of 1886, and that time he very
nearly succeeded, as twenty-three members voted for and twenty-
three against the motion. But the President gave his casting
vote against it. After this approach to a success, Mr. Ranyard
waited two years before renewing his onslaught. In 1890 February
he again moved that no medals should be given to anybody.
But the Fellows present were evidently tired of the whole thing,
and "the previous question" was carried by a large majority.
This was the last time Mr. Ranyard tried to persuade the Society
as to this matter, about which he was evidently very much in
earnest. He died in 1894, and nobody has ever tried to take up
his proposal. The Gold Medal is still given to some astronomer
after a full and searching discussion by the Council, and is always
accepted with pride and pleasure by the recipient. And nobody
has been found to insinuate, even obscurely, that the Council
might try and be more like Caesar's wife.*
* All the same, the Council in 1917 January passed a resolution that it is
" undesirable " that a Member of Council be proposed for the Medal, unless
the proposal is supported by a written notice sent to the President before the
236 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920
Soon after the cessation of these attacks on the Gold Medal,
the Council was called upon to issue regulations for another prize
to be given in the name of the Society. The founder of this prize
was Mrs. Hannah Jackson, a daughter of the well-known archi-
tect and writer on architecture, Joseph Gwilt.* In 1861 June
she announced to the Council of the Society her desire to give
300 new 3 per cent, stock, to the intent that the same might be
a reversionary gift to the Royal Astronomical Society, to be held
on trust, and the dividends thereof to be given either annually
or every two years to " any person writing the best astronomical
work or in any other way advancing Astronomy, either by the
invention of a new astronomical instrument or by the discovery
of any new heavenly body." The gift was to be called the
" Hannah Jackson (nee Gwilt) Gift," and the donor wished to
receive the interest of the 300 during her life. At the request of
the Council, Mrs. Jackson consented to the limit of the term of
the accumulation of the interest being extended to seven years ;
she also agreed that the gift should consist of a medal, of money,
or of both. I The gift was then accepted by the Council and was
announced in the Council Report of 1862 February, and by the
adoption of this Report the Annual General Meeting was supposed
to have adopted the general principle of the award of another
medal.
Mrs. Jackson died on 1893 December I, after which date the
interest was allowed to accumulate for a couple of years. When
the question of the new medal was considered by a Committee of
the Council, it was at first proposed that the medal be of silver
and made from the same die as the Gold Medal, to be inscribed
" Hannah Jackson (nie Gwilt) Gift," with name and date. But
on second thoughts it was decided that the obverse should show
the portrait of William Herschel, and the reverse Urania holding a
small armillary sphere ; the medal to be in bronze and three inches
in diameter. The medal and money grant to be awarded at
intervals of not less than three nor more than seven years. As
the Committee had dealt with these matters with great delibera-
tion, nearly the whole of the year 1896 had passed before the
Society was informed of these arrangements. As it was desired to
make the first award of the medal and a cheque in the following
February, a Special General Meeting was called for January 8
November Meeting of Council, signed by not less than seven members of
Council. But this is merely an expression of opinion, not a bye-law.
* F.R.A.S., died 1863. His daughter latterly called herself Mrs. Jackson-
Gwilt. She was a somewhat eccentric lady, who had a coat-of-arms depicted
on her visiting card, over her name. She left a large astronomical scrap-book
to the Society's library.
f Extract from Council Minutes, 1861 June 14, printed in M.N., 57, 36.
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 237
to make a slight alteration of Bye-Laws 69-74, by adding every-
where the word " gold " before " medal." This would have the
effect of not forbidding the bestowal of the new medal. At the
February meeting in 1897 the first award of the " Hannah Jackson
(nee Gwilt) Gift and Medal " \vas made to the veteran astronomer,
Lewis Swift, who was well worthy of the honour of heading the
list of recipients of this new mark of our Society's appreciation.
It has always been considered something in the nature of a
treat to listen to the generally admirable addresses from the Chair
before the presentation of the Gold Medal. But the same can
hardly be said of the rest of the entertainment provided on these
occasions, consisting of scraps of Observatory Reports and one or
two obituary notices, read aloud by one of the Secretaries. These
may be very interesting to read in print, but are hardly suitable
for oral delivery. It was therefore a most welcome innovation
when Professor Newall, after the presentation of the medals in
1909, delivered a second address. He said he had gathered that
the view was held in many quarters that the President might,
from time to time, make the Annual Meeting an opportunity for
a brief address on some subject of his own choosing, preferably
on some special branch of our subject, compiled from a special
point of view, whether retrospective and historically suggestive,
or prospective and speculatively suggestive. On this occasion
he wished to lay before the meeting the following aspect in astro-
physical questions : " Can it be that the main characteristic
spectroscopic phenomena of the sun and stars are dictated mainly
by matter continually streaming in from without, and not mainly
by matter brought from within the body of the sun and the star ? "
The thorough discussion of this and associated questions by a
speaker who is devoting his life to the study of them, makes this
address take a high rank among the many important communi-
cations made to the Society in the course of years.*
Equally important (in a different way) was the subject dealt
with by Gill two years later before leaving the Chair, when he
drew attention to the desirability of enlarging the Nautical Almanac
office, to enable the Director to devote his time to researches in
astrodynamics. We have already alluded to this address.
Since 1911 no President has followed the example thus set of
delivering a second address, for the interesting address on the
foundation of the Society by Professor Fowler (1920 February)
can hardly be classed with those just mentioned. It was delivered
on a very special occasion, to which it was altogether devoted,
and there was, moreover, no presentation of a medal that year,
and, therefore, the usual address could not be given. An address,
* The address is printed in full in the M.N., 69, 332-344.
238 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920
reviewing in detail the work of the medallist, must generally be
the outcome of a considerable amount of preparation on the part
of the President, and it is perhaps not fair that a busy man should
be expected to undertake extra work at the same time. But
occasionally, when a President has something very much at heart
connected with his own work, and yet perhaps not ready to be
embodied in a formal paper, a second address would enable him
to feel : liberavi animam meant.
Special addresses have sometimes been delivered by foreign
Associates. Thus in 1897, Professor Barnard crossed the Atlantic
to receive the Gold Medal, but was delayed by fog till after the
Annual Meeting. An informal extra meeting was therefore held
on March 2 following, when Professor Barnard exhibited and
explained a number of slides of planets, comets, parts of the
Milky Way, etc. Ten years later, 1907 June 26, there was a
Special Evening Meeting to hear another distinguished American,
Professor Hale, give a lecture on " The Opportunities for Astro-
nomical Work with inexpensive Apparatus." The members of
the British Astronomical Association were invited.
At the very end of the period we are here reviewing, on 1919
December 12, the ordinary meeting was not devoted to the reading
of papers. In view of the widespread interest in the theory of
relativity caused by the publication of the results of the eclipse
observations, the Council thought they would meet the wishes
of the Fellows by giving up the whole time of the meeting to the
consideration of this subject. Addresses were delivered by
Professor Eddington and Mr. Jeans, after which Sir Oliver Lodge
also addressed the meeting, and a communication from Sir Joseph
Larmor was read.* It was a fitting tribute to the great theory,
which had been raised from the rank of an interesting hypothesis
to that of an epoch-marking theory by the confirmation afforded
it by experiment and observation.
Apart from these special occasions all ordinary meetings con-
tinue to be devoted to the reading of papers and the subsequent
discussion on their contents. f This discussion is generally very
interesting and often throws additional light on the subject. It
is a great pity that we possess no records whatever of what happened
at the meetings previous to 1862 November, when the Astronomical
Register began to give short reports of the proceedings at the
meetings. From that time we possess an unbroken series of
accounts of these, as The Observatory, from the appearance of its
* These addresses and papers were all printed in the Monthly Notices.
j- As a rule, there are more papers sent in than can be " read " at a meeting ;
but in 1887 December only two papers had been received, and neither of these
was suitable for reading. This provided a rare opportunity for discussing
various topics of special interest at the moment, such as curved plates, etc.
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 239
first number in 1877 April, has made these reports a special
feature, to which most readers probably look first of all on receiv-
ing a new number. The lantern provided in 1890 December has
been a most useful acquisition, as it not only enables the members
present to see under the best conditions the wonderful features
of the Milky Way, Nebulae, Solar Corona, etc., from the most
recent photographs, but also gives an author convenient means of
showing tabular matter or intricate formulae on the screen instead
of wasting time in copying them out on the blackboard, where
many of the audience are unable to see them. Another useful
innovation was tried in 1889, when advertisements were inserted
in The Times giving the titles of the papers received up to a couple
of days before each meeting. This was discontinued a year later,
since when postcards giving this information have been sent to
such Fellows as express their wish to receive them.
The principal work of a scientific Society, and that by which
posterity will judge it, is, of course, the publication of papers.
During the forty years ending 1920 our Society has published
a steadily increasing number of papers dealing with all branches
of Astronomy. At the beginning of this period, in 1881 November,
Cayley resigned the Editorship of the Society's publications,
which he had held (in succession to Grant) since 1859 December,
except during the two years (1872-74) when he was President,
while Proctor took his place as Editor. It was resolved by the
Council in 1881 December, that in future the publications should
be edited by the Secretaries, with such help from the Assistant
Secretary as they might require, and that the remuneration of
50 per annum hitherto paid to the Editor, be paid to him. This
arrangement is still in operation and has worked well.
It is very curious to see how the Monthly Notices have gradually
taken the place of the Memoirs as the principal organ of the
Society. This was, of course, due to the rapidity and regularity
of its publication. Though this journal had gradually taken over
many short papers from the Memoirs, the Annual Report appeared
in both series up to 1858, while each volume of the Memoirs was
described on the title-page as the quarto half-volume for the
session . . ., and bore the following notice on the cover : " The
Octavo Half-volume, being volume ... of the Monthly Notices,
containing the abstracts, observations, shorter papers, etc., for
the same session, is given to purchasers of the Quarto Half- volume,
and is necessary to complete it." But this notice disappeared
after 1858, the Monthly Notices being thus recognised as a separate
journal. Still the Council wished to make the journal " become
an integral part of the volumes of the Memoirs." This was done
by re-imposing the type into a quarto form with double columns,
240
HISTORY OF THE
[1880-1920
Vol. 25
1864-65
283 pages
Vol. 55
>, 30
1869-70
231 ,
60
35
1874-75
416 ,
65
, 40
1879-80
637 .
70
45
1884-85
525 >
n 75
50*
1889-90
568 ,
80
thus forming an edition of the Monthly Notices which might be
bound up with the Memoirs. In this way volumes 19 to 27
appeared in a double form, after which this curious arrangement
was discontinued. It was indeed totally unnecessary, as the
Monthly Notices had taken its place in the first rank of astro-
nomical publications. It has more than once been pointed out
by the Council, that the Society does not print papers which have
already appeared elsewhere in print ; but foreign astronomers
not infrequently make the Monthly Notices the medium of publica-
tion of their work. It is interesting to note the increase in the
number of pages per volume during late years :
1894-95 553 pages
1899-1900 632
1904-05 893
1909-10 680
1914-15 727
1919-20 820 ,,
An important part of each volume is the Annual Report of
the Council. This has always been a very readable document,
more so perhaps during the first thirty or forty years, when the
Council or the Secretaries told their story in their own words.
But whatever the Report has lost since then as literature, it has
certainly gained as a scientific record, particularly as regards the
" Notes on some points connected with the recent progress of
Astronomy." These formerly confined themselves to notices on
a limited number of important works and Memoirs. But from
1893 an attempt has been made to give a list of discoveries during
the year, not only in the cases of minor planets and comets, but
in those of double stars, variable stars, stellar spectra, etc. The
copious references to the recent literature on these subjects must
be a great boon to workers, as it is now more than ever exceedingly
easy to overlook some paper or note among the vast multitude
published, some of them in journals where one might not think
of looking for them.
The value of the Monthly Notices as a continuous record of
astronomical progress is illustrated by the occasional requests
from abroad for copies of those old volumes of the journal which
have been out of print for many years. We have mentioned f
that volumes 3, 4, 5 have been unobtainable almost from the
day they were printed. Volumes 7 and 27 have also been out
of print for more than forty years, while there are only a few
copies left of several others. Enquiries were made in 1911 as
* In addition to an appendix of 175 pp. See above, p. 220.
f Above, p. 80.
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 241
to the cost of reprinting 3, 4, and part of 5, but even then it
was prohibitive. Of the papers published in these old books
very few are now of great importance, but everyone fond of books
hates to have gaps in a long series. One paper was, however,
of first-rate importance, that of Adams on the Orbit of the Novem-
ber Meteors in volume 27. In view of the expected return of
the Leonids, this paper was in 1897 reprinted in volume 57, and
that is probably all that will ever be reprinted. It is much more
unfortunate, that during a destructive fire at Messrs. Neill & Co.'s,
the Society's printers, in 1916 May, many copies of recent numbers
of the Monthly Notices w^ere lost, so that there are very few copies
left, particularly of volume 76, numbers 1-5.
Whether a paper is to be printed in the Monthly Notices or in
the Memoirs depends now almost altogether on whether the extent
of tabular matter contained in it requires the quarto size or not.
A troublesome relic of old times was a rule requiring a Fellow to
call in person for his copy of the Memoirs or to get somebody else
to call for it. Naturally people often forgot to do so within the
prescribed limit of time and had to make special application to
the Council before they could get their copies. The introduction
of parcel post facilitated the abolition of this tiresome rule ; from
1891 the Society has paid the postage on the Memoirs, and from
1903 it has been unnecessary to apply for each volume. A more
serious cause of complaint was the long delay which often occurred
in publishing a paper in the Memoirs, before a number of papers
sufficient to fill a volume had been collected. As an experiment,
some copies of volume 47 were printed in six parts, but there
was not much demand for them, and the experiment was not
repeated for more then twenty years. Since 1905, however,
beginning with volume 57, each paper has been printed and
distributed separately with as little delay as possible.
It may be said without fear of contradiction that the volumes
of Memoirs published during the last fifty years are not inferior
in value to the earlier volumes. And they have one advantage
over those. Not one of the later volumes is partly filled with
longitude determinations or results of meridian observations,
which though generally printed without expense to the Society,
should not have been inserted in the Memoirs.
We have already mentioned when describing the Society's
participation in eclipse expeditions, that arrangements were made
with the Royal Society in 1898 whereby a sufficient number of
copies of the eclipse reports printed in the Proceedings of the
Royal Society and Philosophical Transactions, were supplied to
our Society to be re-issued as appendices to the Monthly Notices
and Memoirs. This arrangement was very soon extended so as
16
242 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920
to include papers on astrophysical subjects not connected with
eclipses. In this way appendices with double pagination were
issued to volumes 58 and 60 to 65 of the Monthly Notices.
Though the Fellows were thus supplied with copies of valuable
papers which many of them would not otherwise have seen, this
arrangement had two drawbacks. It increased the thickness of
the volumes, which even without them was rather considerable,
and it prevented the index being at the end of the volume. It
came to an end when the size of the Proceedings was changed from
demy 8vo to royal 8vo.
Appendices of similar contents appeared to volumes 54,
55, 57 of the Memoirs. But in 1906 the Council of the Royal
Society discontinued the agreement, apparently because they had
received many applications from other Societies for the privilege
of including Royal Society papers in their publications. They
declared themselves ready to consider the question of supplying
either series A or B of the Philosophical Transactions direct to
members of Societies at a reduced rate, " provided such Society
be willing to subscribe on behalf of an adequate proportion of its
members." But our Council did not accept this invitation. In
1909 March the Council resolved that the Secretaries be encouraged
to insert in the Monthly Notices brief abstracts of papers in the
Philosophical Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society.
The encouragement thus given appears to have been insufficient,
and the short reviews often found in the Monthly Notices sixty
to seventy years ago have never been resumed.
Apart from its regularly appearing publications, the Society
has only on one occasion shared in the printing of an astronomical
work. This was in 1910-1912, when the Society joined the Royal
Society in publishing " The Scientific Papers of Sir William
Herschel," in two large quarto volumes. It had always been felt
as a serious desideratum in astronomical literature, that the
important papers of W. Herschel had never been collected, but
had to be looked for in about forty volumes of the Philosophical
Transactions.* But the difficulty of getting a private publisher
to undertake the risk of issuing so extensive a work was so great,
that nothing was done to realise the no doubt widely spread wish
till nearly ninety years after Herschel's death. When an appeal
had been made in print, addressed to the R.A.S. and the Royal
Society, by Professor See of Calif ornia,f the matter was at length
taken up in earnest in the beginning of 1910. A joint Committee
was formed, and thanks to the liberality of Sir W. J. Herschel,
the grandson and son of two great astronomers, access was given
* See, for instance, W. Struve, fitudes d' 'astronomic stellaire, p. 23.
f The Observatory, 32, 473.
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 243
to the manuscript treasures at that time still preserved at Slough.
The Royal Society also lent Herschel's original " Sweep-Books,"
so that it became possible to make a thorough revision of his three
catalogues of Nebulae and Clusters. A lengthy biographical
introduction was prepared from letters and other manuscripts,
and the papers read before the Philosophical Society of Bath were
now printed for the first time. The new edition came out in
the spring of 1912.*
Without having any pecuniary interest in the undertaking
or assuming any editorial responsibility, the Society lent a hand in
the republication and distribution of Franklin-Adams' Chart of
the Heavens and Higgs' smaller atlas of the Solar Spectrum, in
1913 and 1915.
In addition to receiving the Memoirs and Monthly Notices,
attending the meetings and voting on matters brought before the
General Meetings, the Fellows have the privilege of using the
fine library gradually collected by the Society. The greater
part of this is contained in the large room on the first floor, in which
the Fellows assemble before the meetings. This was in 1890
connected with the gallery at the top of the room by means of a
spiral staircase. At the same time the Society was put to con-
siderable expense in carrying out various structural alterations
made necessary by the rapid increase of the library. The Treasury
declined to let these be done at the public expense, giving as a
reason that it had originally been intended that the library should
be of the full height of the first and second floors together and
provided with galleries. But in the building as constructed,
when handed over to the Society, an intermediate floor was intro-
duced and a depository fitted with shelving for large parcels on
the second floor. As the building had all the appearance of having
been permanently completed for the purpose for which it was
used, the Treasury could not sanction any further work on it
at the public expense. The Society therefore undertook to convert
the room above the library (which has the same floor-space but is
much lower) into an additional library. This " Upper Library "
contains books not dealing specially with astronomy, such as the
Transactions of- various Foreign and Colonial Societies, duplicates,
etc. Some of these duplicates are of great value and have been
acquired for the express purpose of being lent to Fellows, without
disturbing the sets in the library, which are never lent out, such as
the Astronomische Nachrichten, and our Memoirs and Monthly
Notices.
* When Herschel's MSS. were presented to the Society in 1918 January,
it was found that a summary of his observations of variable stars compiled
by Caroline Herschel had not been at the disposal of the Editor of the Scientific
Papers. It was printed in the M.N., 78, 554-568.
244 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920
The problem of how to find room for the ever-increasing addi-
tions to the library has of late years repeatedly occupied the
attention of the Council. In 1889 and in 1912 some non-astro-
nomical books were sold, but this remedy can obviously only be
applied to a very limited extent. It has, however, been ascertained
that the floor of the upper library would be strong enough to support
an additional back-to-back bookcase down the centre of the room
if not more than 7 feet high. The question of shelf-space is
therefore not of immediate urgency.
A catalogue of the library, complete to 1884 June and extending
to 408 pp. 8vo, was published in 1886. A supplement to 1898 June
was brought out in 1900. Since then only the annual lists of
accessions, separately paged, have been issued with the last number
of every volume of the Monthly Notices, and for the convenience
of those who do not wish to bind them with this journal, title-pages
to these lists were supplied in 1905 and 1912. It is very incon-
venient not to have a catalogue of this valuable collection complete
to a recent date, but the great increase in the cost of printing will
make it very difficult to supply this want.
The manuscript department of the library, though only possess-
ing a few old manuscripts, is nevertheless an important part of
the Society's property. Some important additions to it have
been presented within the last few years, the most valuable one
being the great collection of William Herschel manuscripts, pre-
sented by the late Sir W. J. Herschel. A detailed descriptive
catalogue of this collection was given in the Monthly Notices,
volume 78.
In connection with the library, we may also mention that the
Society possesses a fine collection of portraits. Round the walls
of the meeting-room are arranged framed photographs of all the
past Presidents, while there are also paintings of Newton, W.
Herschel (a copy of Artaud's portrait of 1819), and Goodricke.
The fine portrait of Baily still hangs in the Council-room.
Finally, it may not be out of place to say a few words about
the Council, the governing body of the Society. Consisting
originally of seventeen members, of whom eight did not hold any
special office,* these numbers were in 1825 raised to nineteen and
ten. They remained unaltered till 1858, when advantage was
taken of a clause in the Charter permitting the addition of two
members to those who hold no office, The two principal classes
of Fellows constituting the Society, professional astronomers and
amateurs, are always both well represented, and in particular it
is an unwritten rule that of the two Secretaries one is a professional
and the other an amateur, or at least that one is specially con-
* In 1920 there were only six of these.
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 245
versant with gravitational Astronomy, the other with observational
Astronomy or astrophysics. The continuity of the Council has
been kept up by always retaining some of the more prominent
members for a number of years. We shall only mention a few
examples of continuous service of Fellows not now living :
Baily . . -25 years 1820-44
E. Riddle . * 27 1825-52
Lee ... 38
Airy . . . 56
Cayley . . 35
Adams . . -32
Huggins . . . 46
Dunkin . . 23
1829-67
1830-86
1858-93
1860-92
1864-1910
1868-91
In addition to these there were several others who served many
years on the Council, such as De Morgan, 1830-62, except the
year 1845 (and he was Secretary 1831-39 and 1847-55), and
Christie, 1872-1913, except 1879-80. The case of Huggins is
altogether unique, because he held office for so many years.
He was Secretary 1867-72, Foreign Secretary 1873-76, President
1876-78, and again Foreign Secretary 1883-1910, till the day of
his death.
While care is thus taken that experience and knowledge of the
Society's affairs are not lost, stagnation is prevented by two
important provisions in the Bye-Laws. First, that no Fellow who
has been President or Vice-President for two successive years
shall again be eligible to the same situation till the expiration of
one year from the termination of his office. And secondly, that
eight only of the twelve members of the Council holding no office,
who have served during any year, shall be eligible in the same
capacity for the ensuing year.
The gradual increase in the number of Fellows may be seen from
the following table :
Fellows. Associates.
1830 243 34
1840 307 38
1850 349 57
1860 380 51
1870 509 45
1880 591 43
1890 595 48
1900 635 48
1910 682 47
1920 715 50
There is therefore every reason to hope that the number of
246 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920
Fellows will not fall off, particularly as ladies have now at last
been admitted.
If this review of the history of the Society had been written
six or seven years earlier, we should have been able to look with
confidence to the future, expecting the steady financial prosperity,
which we have hitherto enjoyed, to continue. But the cost of
printing has increased enormously during the last few years, and it
does not seem at all likely that it will ever be materially reduced.
Still, there is no cause for immediate anxiety. In the past, generous
benefactors have occasionally by bequest increased the funds of
the Society. Thus, during the last forty years we have received :
The McClean bequest of 2000, free of legacy duty, from Frank
McClean, LL.D., F.R.S., in 1905.
The Farrar bequest of 100, free of legacy duty, from the Rev.
A. S. Farrar, D.D., in 1906.
The Gill bequest of 250, free of legacy duty, from Sir David
Gill, F.R.S., in 1919, to be devoted to the completion of some
great piece of work. It was spent on printing Professor Sampson's
Theory of Jupiter's great satellites (Memoirs, 63).
It is surely permitted to hope that the Society will also in
future, from time to time, see its funded property increased by
similar donations, which will be the more acceptable, the less
trammelled by conditions they are.* As regards printing, all
scientific Societies in the world seem to be affected in the same way
as we are, and many of them are probably worse off, having much
less invested capital.
In conclusion, let us glance at what the Society has accom-
plished during the hundred years it has been in existence, and ask
whether this can compare favourably with what the founders of
the Society declared to be their objects.
In the Address circulated before the first public meeting the
original members summarised the means by which they proposed
to advance Astronomy as follows : Collecting, reducing, and
publishing useful observations and tables ; setting on foot a minute
and systematic examination of the heavens ; establishing com-
munications with foreign observers, circulating notices of remark-
able phenomena about to happen and of discoveries ; proposing
prize-questions and bestowing rewards on successful research.
* Since this was written, the Society has, in 1922 April, received a liberal
donation of 2500 from the Hon. Sir Charles Parsons, K.C.B., as a Memorial
to his father, William, third Earl of Rosse, the maker of the great telescope.
The Society also, about the same time, received a number of smaller donations,
amounting in all to nearly 1400, thanks to the energy of the Treasurer,
Colonel Grove-Hills. See also the Preface as to his bequest of a Library.
COLONEL E. H. GROVE-HILLS
(1864-1922)
TREASURER, 1905-13 AND 1921-2; PRESIDENT, 1913-15.
To face p. 246
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 247
That the publications of the Society have been the means of
making a great many observations public property is an undoubted
fact. But the fulfilment of the second promise was never even
attempted. It included " the formation of a complete catalogue
of stars and of other bodies, upon a scale infinitely more extensive
than any that has yet been undertaken, and that shall com-
prehend the most minute objects visible in good astronomical
telescopes."
Five years after the issue of this manifesto, Bessel invited the
co-operation of observers to construct star maps of the region
between 15 Declination. This was only a small portion of the
heavens, yet the work took thirty-four years to complete. On
the other hand, when Argelander took in hand the construction of
similar maps of the whole northern hemisphere, based solely on
new observations, he and two devoted assistants completed their
great task in eleven years, including the printing of a great atlas
and a catalogue in three volumes of 324,000 approximate star
places. The desire was at once expressed that this work might be
continued to the South Pole, and several southern observatories
were to divide it between them. But nothing came of this project ;
while Schonfeld alone in a few years continued the work to 23
Declination. Again, the great undertaking of the Astronomische
Gesellschaft, the catalogue of all stars down to the ninth magnitude
from zone observations, took for the northern hemisphere more
than forty years to finish, chiefly because
" On the strength of one link in the cable
Dependeth the might of the chain,"
and there is generally more than one faulty link in co-operative
chains. This has also been the case with the photographic chart
of the heavens, while Gill and Kapteyn rapidly carried out
their photographic continuation of Argelander's and Schonfeld's
work.
There seems, therefore, no reason to regret that our Society has
never wasted time and energy in organising co-operative under-
takings. Again and again history has shown that what is wanted
for a successful undertaking in practical Astronomy, as in
every other great and laborious undertaking, is the proper kind of
man for the work. If he be found and be given the material
means necessary for the realisation of his ideas, he will carry out
the work far more quickly and perhaps better than a dozen people
acting under instructions from a central institution could com-
plete their tasks. And this is not only the case with charts and
catalogues of stars. The planetary tables of Le Verrier and
248 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920
Newcomb, the tables of the moon of Hansen and Brown, and
many other results of lengthy researches have been carried out
without splitting up the work among a number of collaborators
in different places.
But even if it be admitted that co-operation is desirable in
many cases, it is by international associations that it should be
organised, and not by a Society which, like ours, has a national
character, even though it does not exclude foreigners from the
ranks of its members. The principal aims of the Royal Astro-
nomical Society were therefore from the beginning, first, the
publication of papers ; secondly, to encourage the study of
Astronomy in this country and to guide it into proper channels,
so as to produce work fruitful for the progress of astronomical
science. For forty years previous to 1820, William Herschel had
almost every year published one or more papers containing re-
markable discoveries or brilliant ideas on the construction of the
Universe. But his voice was that of one crying in the wilderness.
His son wrote long afterwards of this period : " Mathematics
were at the last gasp and Astronomy nearly so ; I mean in those
members of its frame which depend upon precise measurement
and systematic calculation." That our Society contributed
greatly to change this state of things in the course of the first
ten or fifteen years of its existence, cannot be disputed. The
gradual formation of a steadily growing class of amateur astro-
nomers, the reform of the Nautical Almanac, the new spirit infused
into the public observatories, the valuable papers published in
the Memoirs, showed very soon that the new Astronomical Society
was successfully endeavouring to advance science. And through-
out the century the Society has remained true to the ideals which
animated its founders. It may certainly claim a fair share of the
credit of the widely spread interest in Astronomy which was
manifested by the foundation of the British Astronomical
Association in 1890. On that occasion our Society did not copy
the dog-in-the-manger policy of Sir Joseph Banks in 1820,
but saw with pleasure the rise of another organisation binding
together British amateur astronomers and others interested in
Astronomy.
The most conspicuous service which the Society has rendered
to science is, however, the ready means it has offered for the
publication of astronomical papers, lengthy as well as short ones.
If the Society had not existed, these would have been scattered,
and most of the longer ones would probably have found their
way to the publications of provincial Societies and would not
have been readily accessible to many students. Even under
existing circumstances many astronomers prefer to send their most
1880-1920] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 249
important papers to the Royal Society or to some local Society,
an inconvenience which no bibliographical indexes or reviews yet
devised have been able to mitigate. But this is no fault of our
Society, and future historians of science will readily acknowledge
that it has been mindful of its motto
Quicquid nitet notandum.
APPENDIX.
I. PRESIDENTS OF THE SOCIETY.
1821-23.
Sir William Herschel.
1872-74.
1823-25.
H. T. Colebrooke.
1874-76.
1825-27.
Francis Baily.
1876-78.
1827-29.
J. F. W. Herschel.
1878-80.
1829-31.
Sir James South.
1880-82.
1831-33.
Bishop Brinkley.
1882-84.
1833-35.
Francis Baily.
1884-86.
1835-37.
G. B. Airy.
1886-88.
1837-39.
Francis Baily.
1888-90.
1839-41.
Sir J. F. W. Herschel.
1890-92.
1841-43.
Lord Wrottesley.
1892-93.
1843-45.
Francis Baily.
1893-95.
1845-47.
W. H. Smyth.
1895-97.
1847-49.
Sir J. F. W. Herschel.
1897-99.
1849-51.
G. B. Airy.
1899-00.
1851-53.
J. C. Adams.
1900-01.
1853-55.
G. B. Airy.
1901-03.
1855-57.
M. J. Johnson.
1903-05-
1857-59.
George Bishop.
1905-07.
1859-61.
Robert Main.
1907-09.
1861-63.
John Lee.
1909-11.
1863-64.
G. B. Airy.
1911-13.
1864-66.
Warren De la Rue.
1913-15.
1866-68.
Charles Prit chard.
1915-17.
1868-70.
R. H. Manners.
1917-19.
1870-72.
William Lassell.
1919-21.
Arthur Cay ley.
J. C. Adams.
William Huggins.
Lord Lindsay.
J. R. Hind.
E. J. Stone.
Edwin Dunkin.
J. W. L. Glaisher.
W. H. M. Christie.
J. F. Tennant.
E. B. Knobel.
W. de W. Abney.
A. A. Common.
Sir R. S. Ball.
Sir G. H. Darwin.
E. B. Knobel.
J. W. L. Glaisher.
H. H. Turner.
W. H. Maw.
H. F. Newall.
Sir David Gill.
Sir F. W. Dyson.
E. H. Hills.
R. A. Sampson.
P. A. MacMahon.
A. Fowler.
II. TREASURERS.
W. Pearson
J. Lee
G. Bishop .
S. C. Whitbread
F. Barrow .
1820-31
1831-40
1840-57
1857-78
1878-84
A. A. Common
E. B. Knobel
W. H. Maw
E. H. Hills .
E. B. Knobel
1884-95
1895-00
1900-05
1905-13
1913-22
250
HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 251
III. SECRETARIES.
C. Babbage
F. Baily
J. Millington
O. G. Gregory
W. S. Stratford .
R. Sheepshanks .
A. De Morgan
J. Wrottesley
G. Bishop .
T. Galloway
H. Raper .
R. Main
R. W. Rothman .
T. Galloway
W. Rutherford .
R. Sheepshanks .
T. Galloway
A. De Morgan
R. H. Manners
W. De la Rue .
R. C. Carrington .
C. Prit chard
R. Hodgson
1820-24
1820-23
1823-26
1824-28
1826-31
1828-31
1831-39
1831-33
1833-39
1839-41
1839-42
1841-46
1842-43
1843-45
1845-47
1846-47
1847-48
1847-55
1848-57
1855-63
1857-62
1862-66
1863-67
E. J. Stone '. . 1866-71
W. Huggins . . 1867-72
E. Dunkin . . . 1871-77
R. A. Proctor . . 1872-74
A. C. Ranyard . . 1874-80
J. W. L. Glaisher . 1877-84
W. H. M. Christie . 1880-82
E. B. Knobel . . 1882-92
G. L. Tupman . . 1884-89
A. M. W. Downing . 1889-92
E. W. Maunder . . 1892-97
H. H. Turner . . 1892-99
H. F. Newall . . 1897-01
F. W. Dyson . . 1899-^05
E. T. Whittaker . . 1901-07
T. Lewis . . . 1905-09
S. A. Saunder . . 1907-12
A. R. Hinks . . 1909-13
A. S. Eddington . . 1912-17
A. Fowler . . . 1913-19
A. C. D. Crommelin . 1917-23
T. E. R. Phillips . . 1919-
IV. FOREIGN SECRETARIES.
J. F. W. Herschel . 1820-27
C. Babbage . . 1827-29
W. H. Smyth , . 1829-40
R. W. Rothman . . 1840-42
T. Galloway . 1842-43
W.H.Smyth .. , '.-,. 1843-45
R. Sheepshanks . > 1845-46
Sir J. F. W. Herschel . 1846-47
J. R. Hind . . . 1847-58
R. H. Manners . j . 1858-68
A. Strange .
W. Huggins
Lord Lindsay
J. R. Hind .
Earl of Crawford
Sir W. Huggins
Sir D. Gill .
A. Schuster
H. H. Turner
1868-73
1873-76
1876-78
1878-80
1880-83
1883-1910
1911-14
1914-19
1919-
V. ASSISTANT SECRETARIES.
J. Epps . . December i830-March 1838
J. Hartnup . . March i838-November 1843
R. Harris . . November i843-December 1845
J. Williams . . April i846-December 1874
W. H. Wesley . February i875~October 1922
252
HISTORY OF THE
VI. LIST OF PERSONS TO WHOM THE MEDALS OR TESTI-
MONIALS OF THE SOCIETY HAVE BEEN ADJUDGED.
(The Gold Medal is in every case intended except where otherwise stated.)
1824.
1826.
1827.
1828.
1829.
1830.
1831.
1833.
1835-
1836.
1837-
1839-
1840.
1841.
1842.
1843.
1845.
1846.
1848.
Charles Babbage.
J. F. Encke.
Charles Riimker (the Silver
Medal).
J. L. Pons(/fo Silver Medal.)
J. F. W. Herschel.
James South.
Wilhelm Struve.
Francis Baily.
W. S. Stratford (the Silver
Medal).
Colonel Mark Beaufoy (the
Silver Medal).
Sir T. Makdougall Brisbane.
James Dunlop.
Caroline Herschel.
William Pearson.
!\ W. Bessel.
H. C. Schumacher.
William Richardson.
J. F. Encke.
Captain H. Kater.
Baron Damoiseau.
G. B. Airy.
Lieut. M. J. Johnson.
Sir J. F. W. Herschel.
O. A. Rosenberger.
Hon. John Wrottesley.
Jean Plana.
F. W. Bessel.
P. A. Hansen.
Francis Baily.
Captain W. H. Smyth.
G. B. Airy.
G. B. Airy (Testimonial).
J. C. Adams
F. W. Argelander
George Bishop ,,
Lt. -Col. George Everest ,,
Sir J. F. W. Herschel
P. A. Hansen
K. L. Hencke
1848. J. R. Hind (Testimonial).
U. J. J. Le Verrier
Sir J. W. Lubbock
Maximilian Weisse ,,
1849. William Lassell.
1850. Otto Struve.
1851. Annibale de Gasparis.
1852. C. A. F. Peters.
1853. J. R. Hind.
1854. Charles Riimker.
1855. W. R. Dawes.
1856. Robert Grant.
1857. Heinrich Schwabe.
1858. Robert Main.
1859. R. C. Carrington.
1860. P. A. Hansen.
1861. Hermann Goldschmidt.
1862. Warren De la Rue.
1863. F. W. Argelander.
1865. G. P. Bond.
1866. J. C. Adams.
1867. William Huggins.
W. A. Miller.
1868. U. J. J. Le Verrier.
1869. E. J. Stone.
1870. Charles Delaunay.
1872. G. V. Schiaparelli.
1874. Simon Newcomb.
1875. H. L. D' Arrest.
1876. U. J. J. Le Verrier.
1878. Baron Dembowski.
1879. Asaph Hall.
1881. Axel Moller.
1882. David Gill.
1883. B. A. Gould.
1884. A. A. Common.
1885. William Huggins.
1886. E. C. Pickering.
Charles Prit chard.
1887. G. W 7 . Hill.
1888. Arthur Auwers.
1889. Maurice Loewy.
ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
253
1892. G. H. Darwin.
1893. H. C. Vogel.
1894. S. W. Burnham.
1895. Isaac Roberts.
1896. S. C, Chandler.
1897. E. E. Barnard.
1898. W. F. Denning.
1899. Frank McClean.
1900. Henri Poincare.
1901. E. C. Pickering.
1902. J. C. Kapteyn.
1903. Hermann Struve.
1904. G. E. Hale.
1905. Lewis Boss.
1906. W. W. Campbell.
1907. E. W. Brown.
1908. Sir David Gill.
1909. Oskar Backlund.
1910. Friedrich Kiistner.
1911. P. H. Cowell.
1912. A. R. Hinks.
1913. H. A. Deslandres.
1914. Max Wolf.
1915. A. Fowler.
1916. J. L. E. Dreyer.
1917. W. S. Adams.
1918. J. Evershed.
1919. G. Bigourdan.
THE HANNAH JACKSON (N&E GWILT) GIFT AND MEDAL.
1897. Lewis Swift.
1902. T. D. Anderson.
1905. John Tebbutt.
1909. P. J. Melotte.
1913. T. H. E. C. Espin.
1918. T. E. R. Phillips.
INDEX.
Acceleration, lunar, 158.
Activity of Fellows, 85, 86.
Adams, discovery of Neptune, 92-97 ;
testimonal, 99 ; orbit of Leonids,
162; address on presenting medal to
Le Verrier, 162.
Address on foundation of Society, 3-6.
Addresses, presidential, 237.
Advowsons, 81, 83, 124, 200.
Airy on South's telescope, 54 ; reform of
Nautical Almanac, 60 ; work at
Cambridge, 68, 71 ; position of
Ecliptic, 70 ; Astronomer Royal, 71 ;
medal for Greenwich planetary reduc-
tions, 92 ; testimonial, 93, 99 ; his
attitude to Adams and Le Verrier, 93 ;
defence of himself, 96 ; his great
activity, 148 ; transit of Venus, 180
sqq. ; on Smyth's Bedford Catalogue,
202 sqq. ; on bestowing medal, 206 ;
on endowment of research, 210.
Amateurs in the thirties, 77 ; in the
seventies, 188.
American astronomers, 104 ; Associates,
105.
Apartments, 35, 63 ; at Somerset House,
64, 82 ; offer of, at Kensington, 121 ;
move to Burlington House, 186.
Appendices to M.N. and Memoirs, 241.
Argelander, testimonial, 99 ; Durchmus-
terung, 116, 144, 247.
Armagh, work at, 72, 73.
Arrears of subscriptions, 81, 126, 233.
Assistant Secretary, Epps, 63 ; Hartnup,
63, 84 ; resident, 82 ; Harris, 84 ;
Williams, 84, 186 ; Wesley, 187.
Associates, earliest, 47, 48 ; American,
105 ; number and qualifications, 123.
Association, British Astronomical, 248.
Astraea discovered, 92.
Astrophysics, proposed observatory for
researches on, 175.
Atkinson on refraction, 70.
Australian solar observatory, 222.
Babbage, founder, 1-3 ; medal, 43.
Bache, Associate, 105.
Bailie, density of earth, 118.
Baily, Ann Louisa, 32.
Baily, Arthur, 2, 32.
Baily, Francis, founder, 2, 3, 20, 22 ;
catalogue of stars, 15 ; star con-
stants, 15 ; on Barrett's annuity
tables, 27; tour in America, 29-32;
reform of Nautical Almanac, 56-61 ;
pendulum observations, 68 ; standard
scale, 69 ; central figure of R.A.S.,
77 ; on Flamsteed, 78 ; edits ancient
catalogues, 78 ; pays for Memoirs,
78, 83 ; his portrait, 83 ; death, 87;
his work, 87 ; medal to, 91.
Baily's beads, 78.
Banks, Sir Joseph, disapproves of the
Society, 7.
Barclay, his observatory, 189.
Barnard, extra meeting for, 238.
Barrett, annuity tables, 26.
Beaufoy, medal, 43 ; instruments pre-
sented, 45 ; observations of Jupiter's
satellites, 57.
Becket, Edmund, on transit of Venus,
181 ; endowment of research, 208.
Bedford Catalogue, 92, 202.
Bedford Observatory, 76.
Bequests, 191, 192, 246.
Bessel, stellar parallax, 70, 89 ; pertur-
bations of Uranus, 94.
Billycock Hat, origin of name, 25.
Binary stars, orbits of, 75.
Bishop, his observatory, 77, 116 ; testi-
monial, 99 ; President, 141.
Blagg, Miss, lunar nomenclature, 223.
Bond, G. P., discovers Hyperion, 98 ;
photography, 113; Donati's Comet,
!57-
Bond, W. C., Associate, 105.
Bowler hat, origin of name, 25.
Boys, density of earth, 118.
Brewster, life of Newton, 78 ; address to
British Association in 1850, 112, 120.
Brinkley, President, 51.
Brisbane, founder of Paramatta Observa-
tory, 66.
Buckingham, his 21 -inch refractor, 189.
Bunsen, solar spectrum, 114,
Burlington House, offered in 1854, 121 ;
move to, 1 86.
Burnham on Smyth's Bedford Catalogue,
203, 205.
Cagnoli, paper on figure of earth, 20, 56.
Cambridge Observatory, Airy's work at,
68, 71.
Cape, Mural Circle, 73 ; Observatory, 66,
106 ; proposed Board of Visitors, 221.
Carnot, moving power of heat, 1 1 1 .
254
HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 255
Carrington, sun-spot observations, 156 ;
observatory, 188 ; bequest, 191 ; MSS.
presented, 192.
Carte du Ciel, 215.
Catalogue of astronomical literature, 226.
Catalogue of Stars of Society, 15.
Cavendish experiment, 70.
Cayley, editor, 133, 239.
Challis, failed to find Neptune, 64.
Chambers, G. F., 169, 205.
Charter, 50 ; modified in 1915, 234.
Chevallier, sun-spot observations pre-
sented, 193.
Clock Star tables, 14.
Colby, founder, 2, 3 ; Ordnance Survey,
117.
Colebrooke, founder, 2, 3 ; Indian scholar,
1 8.
Comet, Donati's, 113.
Commission, Royal, on advancement of
science, 174, 207.
Common on endowment of research, 209 ;
celestial photography, 213.
Composition Fee, 232.
Conjoint Board, 227.
Consort, Prince, death of, 140.
Cornu, density of earth, 118.
Corona, types of, 199.
Council, first, 7, 8 ; reports, 134, 240 ;
mode of electing, 140 ; dissensions in,
176 sqq. ; long -continued service on,
245-
Cowell, Superintendent of Nautical
Almanac, 218.
Davy, Humphry, 37.
Dawes, observations of double stars, 75 ;
medal, 123.
Day, commencement of astronomical, 225.
Defaulters, 81, 126, 223.
De la Rue, celestial photography, 112,
144 ; his observatory, 154, 188 ;
eclipse 1860, 156.
Delaunay assists in preparing address,
158, ; lunar acceleration, 159.
Dembowski, medal, 198.
De Morgan, A., on foundation of Society,
21 ; on calculations, 26 ; work as
Secretary, 79 ; on prospects of
astronomy, 81 ; hia character, 86 ;
on circumlocution, 122 ; resigns
seat on Council, 141.
De Morgan, William, 30.
Denison, see Becket.
Denning, Observing Society, 135 ; lists
of radiant points, 199.
Devonshire, Duke of, Royal Commission,
174,207.
Dinner, 2, 21.
Disraeli, his schooldays, 25.
Dissensions in Council, 176 sqq. ; in
Society, 191.
Donati's Comet, 113.
Downing, Superintendent of Nautical
Almanac, 217, 218.
Draper, H., photographs nebula in Orion,
213.
Dublin Observatory, 72.
Dun Echt Observatory, 194 ; circulars,
220.
Dunkin on motion of solar system, 150.
Durchmusterung, 116, 145 ; proposed
southern, 146 ; photographic, 213.
Earth, figure, 69; density, 69, 87, 117,
118.
East Sheen, Pearson's School, 24.
Eclipse, total solar, 1842, 108 ; 1851, 112,
119 ; 1868, 194 ; 1869, Gould on, 170 ;
1870, 164, 169, 170 ; 1871, 171 ;
1875, 190; 1878, 199; 1887, 215;
1889, 215; 1893, 216; reports, how
published, 216, 241,
Eclipse Committee, 215 ; joint, 216.
Eclipse Volume, 171.
Ecliptic, position of, Airy, 70.
Edinburgh Observatory, vacancy at, 67.
Encke, medal for orbit of comet, 43 ;
his Jahrbuch, 58 ; medal for it, 60 ;
orbits of binaries, 75.
Endowment of research, 173, 174, 208.
Ephemerides of satellites and for physical
observations of planets, 210.
Everest, testimonial, 99.
Evershed, expeditions to Kashmir, 222.
Farrar bequest, 246.
Fellows, number of, 80, 83, 211, 245 ;
non-resident, 80, 211 ; foreigners as,
232 ; women, 233.
Fifty years' celebration, 167.
Fisher, G., pendulum observations in the
Arctic, 33.
Flamsteed, copy of correspondence pre-
sented by Baily, 65 ; Baily's book
on, 78.
Foster, pendulum observations, 68.
Foundation of Society, i sqq., 48.
Founders, i sqq., 18.
Fowler, centenary address, 237.
Franklin, John, early member, 33.
Franklin-Adams, charts, 243.
Franz, lunar nomenclature, 223.
Freemason's Tavern, dinner at, 2, 21.
Gasparis, discovery of minor planets, 115.
Gautier, magnetism and sun-spots, 117.
Geodetic work in England, 223 ; base at
Moray Firth, 224 ; arc in Central
Africa, 224.
Geophysics, meetings on, 227; papers on,
228.
George III, death of, i, 7; South's anec-
dote about, 55.
Gesellschaft, Astronomische, foundation
of, 151.
Gill observes Mars at Ascension, 194 ;
bequest, 195 n., 246 ; stellar photo-
graphy, 213 ; reform of Nautical
Almanac Office, 218 ; methods of
determining places of planets, 221 ;
arc in Central Africa, 224.
Glaisher, James, balloon ascents, 145.
Glasgow Observatory, 67.
256
HISTORY OF THE
Glass for object glasses, 16 ; repeal of
duty on, 108.
Gorton starts Astronomical Register,
134-
Gould, photographs of clusters, 213.
Grant, History of Physical Astronomy, 121,
133 ; editor, 133.
Green, drawings of Mars, 197.
Greenwich Observatory, Board of Visitors,
65 ; Airy and, 71.
Gregory, O., founder, 2, 3.
Greig, Admiral, presents altazimuth, 83.
Groom bridge, founder, 2 ; catalogue, 65.
Grove-Hills bequest, 246 n.
Guinand, glass for objectives, 16, 108.
Hale, address by, 238.
Hall, Maxwell, solar parallax, 197.
Ealley's observations, MS. copy of, 64.
Hansen, medal for lunar and planetary
theories, 91 ; testimonial, 99.
Hartnup, Assistant Secretary, 63 ; photos
of moon, 113.
Harton Colliery, pendulum observations,
117.
Hart well House, 34 ; Observatory, 7.6 ;
advowson, 81, 124, 200.
Hencke, discovery of Astrsea, 92 ; testi-
monial, 99.
Henderson, computes occultations, 58 n. ;
Astronomer Royal for Scotland, 67 ;
on refraction, 70 ; lunar parallax, 70 ;
annual parallax, 70, 89 ; justice to,
90.
Henry Brothers, stellar photographs,
213.
Herschel, Alexander, registration of tran-
sits, 173 ; meteors, 199.
Herschel, Caroline, Honorary Member,
8 1 ; her telescope presented, 83.
Herschel, John, diary, i ; one of the
founders, 2, 3 ; state of science in
1820, 1 6 ; South's telescope, 52 n. ;
on Nautical Almanac, 59 ; observes
double stars, 74 ; nebulae, 74 ; orbits of
binaries, 75 ; expedition to the Cape,
75, 106; first to xise glass negatives, 76;
his Cape work, 87, 106 ; on Hyperion,
98 ; testimonial, 99 ; reference Cata-
logue of Double Stars, 202.
Herschel, William, first President, n, 25 ;
collected papers, 242 ; his MSS.
presented, 244.
Higgs, atlas of solar spectum, 243.
Hind, testimonial, 99 ; discovers minor
planets, 115 ; edits Nautical Almanac,
216.
Honorary Members, 81, 192, 234.
Horrocks, Memorial to, 185 ; library
fund, 1 86.
Hewlett, drawings of sun, 153, 192.
Huggins, his observatory, 115,153; spectro -
scopic work, 152 ; held office for
many years, 245.
Hussey, his observatory, 66.
Hyperion, discovery of, 98.
Indian Hill Observatory proposed, 138.
Instrument Committee, 45 ; instruments
lent to Fellows, 76; not traced, 188,
190.
Ivory, afraid of enemies, 78 n.
Jackson, editor of Astronomical Register,
135-
Jackson -Gwilt medal and gift, 236.
Jacob, Indian Hill Observatory, 139.
James, density of earth, 117.
Jansen bequest, 192.
Johnson, catalogue of southern stars, 67 ;
Radcliffe Observer, 72.
Joule, mechanical equivalent of heat, in.
Juno, solar parallax from observations
of, 194.
Kapteyn, Cape D. M., 214.
Kashmir, Evershed's expeditions to, 222.
Kelly, founder, 2, 21.
Kent, Duke of, death, i.
Kew Observatory, 155.
Kirchhoff, solar spectrum, 114.
Knobel, vindicates Smyth's character,
206 ; list of star catalogues, 211.
Lacaille's arc remeasured, 106.
Lambert bequest, 192 n.
Lassell, discovers Hyperion, 98 ; medal,
99; telescopes, 107, 114.
Latitude, variation of, 225.
Lee, Treasurer, 34 ; presents a circle, 46 ;
observatory, 77 ; advowsons, 81,
83, 124, 200 ; benefactor, 81 ;
elected President in opposition to
Airy, 141 ; life, 142.
Lee fund, 81.
Leonids, 160 sqq.
Le Verrier, Neptune, 93 ; testimonial, 99 ;
orbit of Leonids, 162 ; planetary
tables, 162, 191 ; intra -mercurial
planet, 194.
Library, 64, 243 ; catalogue, 64, 244 ; of
Spitalfields Mathematical Society,
103.
Lindsay, Lord, 1 70 ; Mauritius expedition,
194-
Lockyer, spectroscopic work, 154, 169 ;
proposed for medal, 172, 198 ; retires
from Council, 1 76 ; his observatory,
1 88 ; appointed to College of Science,
207.
Longitude, Board of, 15, 56 ; abolished,
58.
Louis XVIII at Hartwell, 34.
Lubbock, planetary theory, 68 ; testi-
monial, 99.
Lucknow Observatory, 118.
Lunar nomenclature, 222 ; tables of
Burckhardt and Hansen compared,
219 ; Theory, 197, 199-
McClean bequest, 246.
Maclear, at Biggleswade, 76 ; at the
Cape, 76, 106.
Main, his work, 136 ; address in 1864, 147.
ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
257
Manners, President, 163.
Manuscripts, 65, 83, log, 243 n., 244.
Markree Observatory, 189.
Mars, solar parallax from, 194 ; drawings
of, 197.
Maskelyne, edits Nautical Almanac, 56.
Mathematical Society at Spitalfields, 99-
102, 104.
Maule, arbitrator, 54.
Maxwell, Clerk, in.
Mayer, Tobias, his catalogue, 77.
Medal, 42 ; first presented, 43 ; none for
discovery of Neptune, 97 ; method
of bestowing, 125 ; giving it to two,
172 ; proposals to abolish, 235.
Medical and Chirurgical Society, rooms at,
35, 60.
Meetings, record of first year's, 11-13 J
first seven years, 39; reports of, 134,
238 ; hour of, 229 sqq. ; special, 238.
Memoirs, regulations for, 36 ; early
volumes, 37 ; in the thirties, 79 ; in
the fifties, 126 ; how distributed, 241 ;
appendices to, 242.
Mercury, transit of in 1878, 197.
Meteors, Leonids, 160 ; connected with
comets, 161 ; observations of, 199 ;
stationary radiants, 199.
Middleton, founder of Mathematical
Society, 83, 99 ; portrait of, 83.
Miller, two of that name, 160.
Millington, Secretary, 42.
Minor planets, 68, 99, 115, 120, 137.
Mitchel, O. M., on South's telescope, 54 ;
Associate, 105.
Mitchell, Maria, discovers a comet, 105.
Monthly Notices, started, 38, 41 ; in the
thirties, 79 ; enlarged, 84 ; in the
fifties, 127 ; in 4to, 133, 239 ; growth
of, 1 88, 240 ; geophysical supple-
ment, 228 ; how edited, 239 ; takes
place of Memoirs, 239 ; old volumes
scarce, 80, 241.
Moon, tables of, 148, 219.
Moon -culminating stars, 73.
Moore, Daniel, founder, 2, 3, 20.
Miiller, Max, on Colebrooke, 18.
Mural Circle, favourite instrument, 72.
Nasmyth, solar surface, 153.
Nautical Almanac, 55 ; reform of, 56 sqq. ;
committee on, 61 ; changes proposed
in 1890, 216; Society not consulted
in 1897, 217 ; Part I. of, 218 ; changes
from 1914, 218 ; suggested change in
office, 218.
Nebulae, J. Herschel's observations, 74 ;
W. Herschel's catalogues revised, 243.
Neison, on lunar theory, 197, 199.
Neptune, discovery of, 92-97 ; attitude of
Society to, 97.
Newall, H. F., special address, 237.
Newall, R. S., 25 -inch telescope, 189.
Newcomb, lunar theory, 199 ; Council
resolution on his retiring, 219 n. ; com-
mencement of astronomical day, 225.
Newton, H. A., on November meteors, 161.
Observatories in southern hemisphere, 66,
221 ; Indian Hill Observatory pro-
posed, 138 ; list of, in the sixties, 131 ;
in the seventies, 189 ; solar observa-
tory in Australia, 222.
Observatory, The, monthly magazine, 198,
238.
Observing Astronomical Society, 135.
Oxford, Radcliffe Observatory, observing
at, 72.
Parallax, lunar, Henderson, 70.
Parallax, solar, Encke's value too small,
149 ; Stone, 163 ; Gill, from Juno, 794 ;
from Mars, 195 ; from transit of Venus,
196 ; Maxwell Hall, from Mars, 197.
Parallax, stellar, Henderson and Bessel,
70, 89.
Paramatta Observatory, 66.
Parry, Edward, proposes additions to
Nautical Almanac, 61.
Parsons bequest, 246 n.
Patron of Society, 46, 50, 81.
Pearson, founder, 1-3, 23 ; buys object-
glass, 1 6 ; earliest idea of founding
Society, 21 ; school at East Sheen,
24 ; star catalogue, 74 ; presents
stock of his Practical Astronomy, 83.
Peirce, Benjamin, Associate, 105.
Pendulum observations, Foster, 68 ;
Baily, 69 ; Airy, 117.
Philosophical Magazine, reports of meet-
ings in, 39.
Photographic Committee, 214.
Photography, J. Herschel's glass nega-
tives, 76 ; daguerreotype of eclipse
of 1851, 112 ; photos of moon, 113 ;
of Donati's comet, 113 ; De la Rue's
work, 144, 156 ; in Transit of Venus,
181 ; advance of stellar photography,
213 ; photos for sale, 215.
Photoheliograph, at Kew, 113, 155 ; at
Greenwich, 156.
Pond, editor of Nautical Almanac, 60 ;
work at Greenwich, 71, 73.
Portraits, 83, 244.
Printing, cost of, 40.
Pritchard, President, 159, 162.
Prize questions, 43.
Proctor, 167 ; on transits of Venus, 168,
180-184 ; proposed for medal, 176 ;
disavowed by Council, 184.
Prominences, nature of, 164.
Ranyard, 169 ; eclipse volume, 172 ;
proposes to abolish medals, 235.
Refraction, Atkinson on, 70.
Register, The Astronomical, 134, 238.
Relativity, discussion on, 238.
Reports, Annual, of Council, 240 ; of
meetings, 134, 238.
Robinson, T. R., work at Armagh, 72, 73.
Rosse, third Earl of, on South's telescope,
54 ; his telescopes, 77, 107, 113 ;
fourth Earl, on moon's heat, 189.
Riimker, C., silver medal, 43 ; gold medal
for star catalogue, 123.
Rutherfurd, photography, 113, 197.
17
258 HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIET
Sabine, magnetism and sun-spots, 117.
Sadler -Smyth, scandal, 201 sqq.
Saunder, lunar nomenclature, 223.
Savary, orbits of binary stars, 75.
Scale, standard, 69, 107.
Schonfeld, Southern D.M., 146.
Schumacher, tables, 57, 58 ; precarious
position, 1848-50, 107.
Schwabe, periodicity of sun-spots, 108,
116 ; drawings presented, 193.
Science, state of, about 1800, 16; about
1850, no.
Secretaries, in the twenties, 45.
Selwyn, photos of sun presented, 192.
Sheepshanks, R., on foundation of Society*
48 ; pamphlet against Babbage,
52 n. ; on South's telescope, 53 ;
Groombridge Catalogue, 65 ; Cape
Mural Circle, 72 ; edits Monthly
Notices, 80 n., 84 ; death, 118.
Sheepshanks, Miss, bequests to Cam-
bridge and to Society, 192*
Shooting stars, see Meteors*
Signatures, book of, 46.
Silvered-glass mirrors, 114.
Slavinski, founder, 2, 32.
Smith, H. J. S., on endowment, 210.
Smyth, Piazzi, eclipse, 1851, 119 ; expedi-
tion to Teneriffe, 120.
Smyth, W. H., Observatory, 76 ; medal,
92, 202 ; his work, 142 ; attack on
him by Sadler, 201 ; vindication by
Knobel, 206.
Sniadecky, 33.
Societies, new scientific, 17, 18.
Solar Observatory, 175 ; in Australia, 222.
Solar Physics, Committee on, 207.
Solar Spectrum, Kirchhoff arid Bunsen,
114 ; Rutherfurd, 198 } Higgs, 243.
Solar System, motion of, 149.
Somerset, Duke of, elected President, 7 ;
declines, 7-10.
Somerset House, rooms at, 64 ; longi-
tude and latitude of, 82.
Somerville, Mrs., Hon. Member, 81, bust
of, 83.
South, founder, 2, 21, President, 51 ; his
telescope and lawsuit, 52 ; on reform
of Nautical Almanac, 57, 59, 60.
Spectroscopy, stellar, in 1863, 152.
Spitalfields Mathematical Society, 99.
Standard Scale, 69, 107.
Star Constants, 15.
Stokes, C., founder, 2.
Stokes, G. G., change of refrangibility of
light, 112 ; astronomy in 1869, 165.
Stone, advowson of, 83, 124.
Stone, E. J., solar parallax, 163, 196.
Strange, career, 173 ; on endowment of
research, 174, 175 ; opposition to
Council, 177.
Stratford, silver medal, 43 ; Secretary, 44,
/ 63 ; Superintendent of Nautical
" Almanac, 62.
Stratosphere, 145.
Struve, O., on discovery of Neptune, 96 ;
medal, 99.
Struve, W., member of committee f
reform of Nautical Almanac, 61.
Sun-spots, period, 108, 116-117 > drawinj
of, 109 ; MS. observations belongii
to Society, 193.
Surface of sun, Nasmyth's observation
153-
Survey of heavens proposed, 6, 49.
Survey, Ordnance, 117, 223.
Sussex, Duke of, helps to get rooms
Somerset House, 64.
Tables, requisite for use with Nautic
Almanac, 65.
Talmage on Sadler-Smyth scandal, 2<
sqq.
Taylor, Henry, reduces Groombridgf
observations, 65.
Taylor j Richard, printer, 40.
Telegrams, astronomical, 220.
Tennant, on Lucknow Observatory, n
proposes changes in Nautical Almanc
216.
Testimonials awarded in 1848, 98.
Thomson, William, work in therm
dynamics, in.
Transit" Ephemerides, 62.
Transit of Venus, see Venus.
Troughton, South's telescope, 52 ; Grooi
bridge's transit circle, 72.
Tupman, results of Transit of Venus, ic
Tumor presents MSS., 83.
Union astronomique Internationale, 228
Uranus, motion of, 66 n., 92.
Usherwood, photo of Donati's comet, n
Venus, Transit of, preparations for obsei
ing, 1 68, 178-184 ; methods of obsei
ing, 179 ; observations in 1874, 18
results, 196.
Visitors admitted, 234.
Voting by proxy or by post, 231.
Vulcan, alleged intra-mercurial planet, i<
Walker, S. C., Associate, 105.
War, subscriptions during, 233.
Waterston, on kinetic theory of gases, 2
other papers, 27-28, 49.
Weale, publisher, 40.
Weisse, testimonial, 99.
Wellington, inauguration of Soutl
telescope, 53.
Wesley, W. H., Assistant Secretary, 18
map of moon, 223.
Whitbread, efficient Treasurer, 125, 137
Wilcox, Director of Lucknow Observatoi
118.
Williams, John, Assistant Secretary, *
1 86.
Wolf, R., period of sun-spots, 117.
Wollastoji, W. H., presents telescope, j
Women asxFellows, 233.
Wrottesley,\tar catalogue. 73.
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