and Astronomical Notices. 189 



event in the history of practical astronomy of no ordinary kind ; for 

 that at least seemed, of all instruments, to be the one whose problem 

 had been best worked out ; for, through so many years, every suc- 

 ceeding mural circle that was made, whether by Troughton, its con- 

 triver, or by any other opticians, was made precisely on the same 

 model, no one seemed capable of suggesting any improvement. At 

 length, however, Dr Robinson dealt it a mortal blow, by the import- 

 ant alterations which he introduced in the circle made for the Armagh 

 Observatory, especially in the divisions, the microscopes, and the 

 mode of moving and handling the instrument, which seem to have 

 been adopted, with some modifications, at Greenwich ; where the 

 final discomfiture has been eff'ected, and the proof satisfactorily esta- 

 blished, that the astronomer is the person who should contrive the 

 instruments which he is to use, not the optician, who has no ex- 

 perience in observation : and the extreme advantage, and even 

 economy, is shewn of sometimes incurring an expense for new 

 instruments, in place of continuing to try to get on with the old and 

 imperfect ones of a former day. 



This grand revolution effected, the altitude and azimuth instrument 

 answering its intended purposes of observations of the moon extremely 

 well; the new reflex-zenith telescope being almost complete, and the 

 American mode of the electric registration of transits being in progress 

 of application, and all the calls for these extra expenses having been 

 most liberally responded to by Government, — Mr Airy believes that 

 he will not have any other improvements to propose for some time to 

 come, and that the Royal Observatory is nearer a normal state now 

 than it has been for a long time past. 



The Oxford Observatory. — Mr Johnson has equally. satisfactory 

 news to report from Oxford, having been furnished some time ago 

 by the Radoliffe Trustees with a magnificent heliometer, and now 

 having recently had a second assistant astronomer appointed under 

 him, besides a journeyman to prepare photographic paper for self- 

 registering instruments, and execute such work generally, and leave 

 has also been given him to employ additional computers occasionally ; 

 so that he considers his observatory *' to be now. as well set up as 

 it need be." It is to be hoped that other public astronomers may 

 soon be enabled to say the same of their observatories. 



SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 



METEOROLOGY. 



1. The Great Fall of Rain in the Lake District in the North of 

 England. — The most important fact connected with these observa- 

 tions is stated to be the discovery of a mountain station which 



