Me^noir of the late Francis Daily, Esq.^ F.R.S.y 6fc. 51 



this step ; for immediately on doing so he entered on a course 

 of devoted and laborious exertion, which continued without 

 interruption during the remainder of his life, and of which the 

 history of science affords few examples. The mass of work 

 which he got through, when looked at as such, is, in fact ap- 

 paling, and such that there seems difficulty in conceiving how 

 it could be crowded into the time ; the key to which is, however, 

 to be found in his admirably conceived methodical arrange- 

 ment of every piece of work which he undertook, and liis in- 

 valuable habit of finishing one thing before he undertook an- 

 other. 



At this epoch, or very shortly subsequent to it, he purchased 

 and took up his permanent residence in his house in Tavistock 

 Place, excellently adapted in every respect both to his future 

 comfort and convenience as a place of abode, and for those 

 important and delicate researches of which it was destined to 

 become the scene; standing, as it does, insulated in a consi- 

 derable garden, well-enclosed on all sides, and, from the nature 

 of the neighbourhood, free from any material tremor from 

 passing carriages. A small observatory was constructed in 

 the upper part, for occasional use and determination of time, 

 though he never engaged in any extensive series of observa- 

 tion. The building in which the Earth was weighed and its 

 bulk and figure calculated, the standard measure of the British 

 nation perpetuated, and the pendulum experiments rescued 

 from their chief source of inaccuracy, can never cease to be 

 an object of interest to astronomers of future generations. 



In endeavouring, according to the best of my ability, to 

 give some account of the astronomical labours of Mr. Baily 

 subsequent to this period, it will no longer be advisable to 

 adhere, as I have hitherto done, to the chronological order in 

 which they were undertaken and executed. It will rather be 

 preferable (with exception of a few memoirs and publications 

 of a miscellaneous nature) to consider them under distinct 

 heads, according as they refer to one or other of the following 

 subjects, viz. — 



1. The Remodelling of the Nautical Almanac; 



2. The Determination of the Length of the Seconds- Pen- 

 dulum ; 



3. The Fixation of the Standard of Length ; 



4'. The Determination of the Density of the Earth; 



5. The Revision of Catalogues of the Stars ; 



6. The Reduction of Lacaille's and Lalande's Catalogues; 

 and 



7. The Formation of a New Standard Catalogue. 



The Nautical Almanac. — The end of the eighteenth and 



E2 



