518 Neui Zealand Institute. 



points calling for special remark in connection with the 

 regular time service, the duties of which have had attention 

 as heretofore. 



Towards the end of 1903 I had pleasure in co-operating 

 with Mr. Otto J. Klotz, Government Astronomer of Canada, in 

 the New Zealand section of tlie very important work which has 

 been undertaken by the Dominion Government in the shape of 

 a determination of the longitudes of a number of fundamental 

 points on the route of the Pacific cable. At the instance of 

 the Department of the Interior, Ottawa, Mr. Klotz carried a 

 chain of longitude-work from Greenwich to the Pacific coast 

 of Canada by means of the telegraph - line, and thence to 

 Australia and New Zealand over the new Pacific cable. The 

 station in New Zealand the position of which he sought to fix 

 in the course of this survey was Doubtless Bay, in the 

 northern part of the Provincial District of Auckland, a tempo- 

 rary observatory being erected by him there near the spot at 

 which the cable comes ashore. It was necessary for his pur- 

 pose that a meridian distance should be ascertained between his 

 observing-station and some spot in New Zealand the longitude 

 of which had already been well determined, and Wellington 

 Observatory was naturally selected as best fulfilling this re- 

 quirement. By direction of the Hon. the Postmaster-General, 

 special telegraphic communication was established between 

 the observatories at Wellington and Doubtless Bay. Very 

 full sets of transit observations were simultaneously taken on 

 suitable nights by Mr. Klotz at Doubtless Bay and by myself 

 at Wellington, the stars selected being chosen wnth a view 

 both to the accurate determination of our respective local 

 sidereal times and to the elimination of our instrumental errors. 

 The nights on which these observations were secured were 

 those of the Gtli, 7th, 10th, lltli, 12th, 17th, and 18th De- 

 cember, the work beginning soon after dark and ending after 

 midnight. On several of these evenings w'e succeeded in ob- 

 serving twenty stars per night, of which sixteen were ordinary 

 "clock stars " and four were circumpolar stars for the deter- 

 mination of the azimuth and collimation errors of the 

 transit instruments. The Wellington and Doubtless Bay 

 clocks were automatically compared on the same nights by 

 means of the telegraph and chronograph, the clocks being 

 placed on the main line for several minutes at a time so 

 as to record at once on both chronographs. Thus the 

 seconds of the Wellington sidereal clock were simultaneously 

 pricked off on the Wellington and on the Doubtless Bay 

 chronographs, and the seconds of the Doubtless Bay sidereal 

 clock were in like manner recorded on the Doubtless Bay and 

 Wellington chronographs. By sending the signals in both 

 directions any error due to wave and armature time on the 



