viii Obifuary. 



» 

 Twenty years later another determination of the difference of longitude 

 between Sydney and Wellington was obtained by the Canadian Astronomer, 

 Dr. Otto Klotz, and by Mr. Thomas King, the New Zealand Astronomer, 

 and so accurately was the work performed by all the astronomers that 

 the two determinations differed only some 17 ft. in a distance of over 

 1,200 nautical miles! 



Mr. Adams was engaged in other astronomical work mitil 1885, and 

 took part in the observations of the total solar eclipse on the 8th Septem- 

 ber, 1885. In that year he was appointed Chief Surveyor of Otago ; in 

 1896 he was transferred to Marlborough ; and he retired from the Public 

 Service in May, 1904. 



His scientific activities were wide and varied. For twenty years he 

 was the editor of the New Zealand Surveyor, and almost every number of 

 that periodical contains some scientific article from his pen. He was a 

 life member of the New Zealand Institute, and was a past President of the 

 Otago Institute. 



He addressed the Wellington Philosophical Society on " Daylight-saving," 

 a device to which he strongly objected ; but he was an energetic advocate 

 for a permanent alteration of the clock of half an hour, so as to make New 

 Zealand standard time twelve hours in advance of Greenwich mean time. 



He was connected with the Hector Observatory, and was in charge of 

 the time service during the interval when the Observatory was being moved 

 from Bolton Street to Kelburn. It was during this period that he developed 

 the almucantar method of time observation with a 12 in. transit theodolite. 

 His ripe experience in astronomy was invaluable to the Hector Observa- 

 tory, to which institution he acted as honorary scientific adviser. It is 

 interesting to note that the transit instrument and astronomical clock used 

 by Mr. Adams in 1883 are now in use at the Observatory. 



The alcove details of Mr. Adams's scientific activities were supplied 

 by his son, Dr. C. E. Adams, of the Hector Observatory ; and whilst the 

 writer, during his twenty-five years in the Lands and Survey Department, 

 knew Mr. Adams through such papers as those dealing with the sag of 

 steel bands and calculations in connection therewith, and other like 

 technical papers, it was not until comparatively recently that he came 

 into personal contact with him, and then it was in an entirely different 

 department of mental activity, the department of poetry and literary 

 criticism, where again his bent of original thought gave value to such 

 acute observations as he occasionally made : this side of his nature is 

 well represented in his son Arthur H. Adams. 



Those who knew him characterize him as a hard and conscientious 

 worker, methodical and orderly ; a rugged personality, who lived intensely 

 in the present. His life and work taught the lesson — do everything in 

 the best way possible, and by' unremitting labour improve upon it the next 

 time. He was always good company, his tenacious and ready memory 

 supplying him with a fund of anecdotes, so that he was always able to 

 introduce one or more, quite apropos, whatever the subject of conversation. 

 He retained his scientific activities right to the end, and less than a 

 month before he died he read a paper on a novel star atlas before the 

 Astronomical Section of the Wellington Philosophical Society. 



Mr. Adams died at his residence, Bellevue Road, Lower Hutt, on 

 Tuesday, the 29th October, 1918, from heart-failure, his widow (sister of 

 the late E. T. Gillon) and a family of six (five sons and one daughter) 



g mi. Johannes C. Andersen. 



