King.— On New Zealand Mean Time. 439 



Ministers gave favourable attention to the proposals sub- 

 mitted to them, the Hon. John Hall minuting Dr. Hector's 

 memorandum with the remark: "As the General Assembly 

 has directed New Zealand mean time to be kept through- 

 out the colony, some provision for ascertaining that time 

 with exactitude is indispensable. The arrangement here 

 suggested seems as good as can be made" (28th November, 

 1868).* 



The erection of the Observatory was accordingly autho- 

 rised ; the building was put in hand at once, and finished in 

 June, 1868 ; and the instruments were placed in position by 

 the following October. The adjusting of the transit instru- 

 ment and other necessary arrangements delayed matters 

 until the end of the year; but in January, 1870, the work 

 of the time-service was begun under Dr. Hector as Director 

 and the Eev. Mr. Stock as Observer ; and it has been carried 

 on continuously ever since. Archdeacon Stock was Ob- 

 server until August, 1887, when failing health obliged him to 

 retire. 



Early attention was devoted to the longitude of the Ob- 

 servatory. There have been several determinations of this. 

 The most reliable have been effected by means of the fixing 

 of the meridian distance from Sydney Observatory, and the 

 work of determining this difference has been accomplished with 

 close accuracy. But Sydney Observatory, although its longi- 

 tude, like that of Melbourne Observatory, is now supposed, 

 as the result of direct telegraphic comparison with Green- 

 wich, to be very exactly known, has been yet compelled on 

 several past occasions to revise its assumed longitude. Wel- 

 lington Observatory, dependent as it has been on Sydney 

 as the prime meridian, has therefore had to make corre- 

 sponding corrections in its assumed longitude. But these 

 changes have not been serious. Fortunately, Melbourne, at 

 a very much earlier date than Sydney, was able to obtain a 

 longitude which has not called for appreciable revision ; and 

 as it was known about thirty years ago that the Melbourne 

 determination was more reliable than the Sydney one (seeing 

 that the Melbourne value had been arrived at by cable from 

 Greenwich, whilst the Sydney value had been obtained from ob- 

 servation), and as, moreover, the difference between the longi- 

 tudes of Sydney and Melbourne had been ascertained then by 

 the use of the telegraph line, it was possible to arrive at a 

 value for Wellington Observatory derived from the Sydney 

 longitude corrected on the basis of the Melbourne longitude, 

 and this corrected value has been shown by subsequent in- 

 vestigations to have been extremely near the mark. 



* Appendix to Journals of House of Kepresentatives, D.-No. 39, 1870. 



