Astronomical Society. 385 



nomy of the southern hemisphere, when Sir Thomas Brisbane was 

 appointed governor of the Colony of New South Wales. The inten- 

 tion of our Government to found an observatory on the largest scale, 

 at the Cape of Good Hope, was, indeed, already fixed ; and the ob- 

 server, a member of this Society, supplied with instruments sufficient 

 for the purpose of constructing a preliminary catalogue, occupied 

 himself with the necessary observations, while awaiting the arrival 

 of those ultimately destined to adorn that establishment, and the 

 building of his observatory. The approximate catalogue so con- 

 structed and reduced, containing all the southern stars observed by 

 Lacaille, down to the 5th magnitude, is already printed by the Royal 

 Society in their Transactions. 



Sir Thomas Brisbane's attachment to Astronomy had ever been a 

 prevailing principle of his mind, and one which even amidst the dis- 

 tractions of a military life of no ordinary degree of activity and ad- 

 venture, he found means to indulge ; and which never deserted him, 

 however the calls of his country might demand his services in a dif- 

 ferent and more splendid career. 



His appointment to the important office of governor of New South 

 Wales, however, put it in his power to execute to their fullest extent 

 and under the most favourable circumstances, plans of astronomical 

 investigation, which to a private individual would have been utterly 

 impracticable. The opportunity was embraced with eagerness. The 

 best instruments, — consisting of an excellent transit of 5 J feet focal 

 length, by Troughton ; a mural circle of two feet in diameter, the 

 workmanship also of Troughton, and said to have been the model on 

 which that of Greenwich was constructed, and which had long been 

 in his possession j and a fine 1 6-inch repeating circle of Reichenbach, — 

 were destined for this service : and two gentlemen engaged as assist- 

 ants at considerable salaries j the one a foreigner of high estimation 

 as a mathematician and calculator, the other Mr. Dunlop, of whom 

 I shall presently have occasion to say much more. It ought to be 

 mentioned, that this noble equipage was furnished entirely from Sir 

 Thomas's private fortune, and maintained wholly at his own expense. 

 Immediately on his arrival in the colony in 1821, and so soon as an 

 observatory could be erected, and the instruments established, the 

 work of observation commenced, and continued with little inter- 

 ruption under the immediate superintendence and direction of Sir 

 Thomas Brisbane himself, who, though the pressing and: important 

 duties of his high office would of necessity seldom admit of his de- 

 voting any material proportion of his time to actual observation, yet 

 frequently took a personal share in the labours of the observatory, as 

 a relaxation from higher duties, and in particular, a great portion of 

 the transits were observed by himself. 



The first fruits of this enterprise, were the observations of the 

 December solstice of 1821, which were published in the Astrono- 

 mical Notices of Schumacher j in which work also appear those of both 

 the solstices of 1 822, and a number of detached and occasional ob- 

 servations, which reached Europe at different times by a variety of 

 channels, and found their way into that valuable collection. The 



New Series. Vol. 3. No. 17. May 1828. 3 D solstices 



