THE ENGLISH OBSERVATORIES. 537 



installed by his friend Dr. Lee. During the last year, one of the rich 

 proprietors of Scotland, Lord Lindsay, founded a splendid observatory 

 at Dun-Echt, for the study of Jupiter's satellites, which Mr. Airy had 

 recommended as the best means for obtaining a knowledge of the mass 

 of that planet. At the same time that he installed his instruments, 

 Lord Lindsay organized at great expense estimated at $80,000 an 

 expedition to observe at Mauritius the transit of Venus, which took 

 place on the 8th of December, 1874. 



This division of labor into numerous specialties is very important 

 for the progress of general science. "Then only," said Bacon, " men 

 will begin to know their strength when no more all will wish to do 

 the same thing, but the one this, and the other that." The application 

 of photography and spectroscopy to the study of celestial bodies by 

 independent astronomers opens to physical astronomy an entirely 

 new horizon, and promises to this branch a most rapid development. 

 At the same time, it is clear that private establishments cannot be re- 

 lied upon for the extended researches that demand the continuous 

 labor of many generations of observers. The creation of a public ob- 

 servatory, assured of a permanent existence, and exclusively devoted 

 to researches in physical astronomy, appeared then desirable and ex- 

 pedient. This chasm has just been filled by the foundation of the Ox- 

 ford Observatory, for the construction of which the senate of that 

 powerful university voted last year considerable funds, and to which 

 Mr. Warren de La Rue presented all his instruments, and especially his 

 famous reflector and his machine for working and polishing mirrors. 



The British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the 

 Royal Astronomical Society have exerted a happy influence upon the 

 development of the observatories as well as other English scientific in- 

 stitutions, by creating a tie between learned men led by the same aspi- 

 rations, in provoking a generous emulation, and in stimulating private 

 enterprise by great examples. By its monthly bulletin, the Monthly 

 Notices, the Astronomical Society assures to the useful efforts of ama- 

 teurs that publicity which is the most powerful incentive to a disin- 

 terested devotion. 



The numerous and vast colonies that compose the British Empire 

 have not remained, in this respect, behind the mother-couutry. British 

 India possesses several observatories, of which the first was founded 

 in 1819, at Madras, by the East India Company. In 1841, the 

 King of Oude, still independent at that epoch, erected a rival estab- 

 lishment at Lucknow, and installed there the astronomer Wilcox, 

 with three native assistants. Eight years after, Wilcox having died, 

 the observatory was suppressed, the registers of observation were 

 eaten by the white ants, and the instruments were destroyed during 

 the war that ended by the annexation of Oude. The Rajah of Travan- 

 core founded, on the Malabar coast, the observatory of Trevanderem, 

 which has furnished specially good meteorological and magnetic ob- 



