CHAPTER VII 



THE STORY OF GREENWICH OBSERVATORY 



Sir Frank Dyson, Astronomer Royal 



A BOY, asked what he knew about astronomers, 

 said, " They discover new stars and generally live 

 a long time/' The second part of his answer may 

 have been right, but the first was hardly correct. That 

 is the popular idea of the astronomer — that he spends 

 hours on clear nights at the eye-piece of a mighty tele- 

 scope, searching the starry sky. 



Actually the professional astronomer is seldom thus 

 employed. He has little time or opportunity for search- 

 ing the night sky or making discoveries. His work is 

 something between that of an engineer and an accountant. 

 He makes observations — thousands of them — and records 

 them with the most extreme care. 



Our own Royal Observatory, standing on top of a small 

 steep hill in Greenwich Park, was built simply to help 

 sailors in their navigation when out of sight of land, and 

 that in a wide sense remains its object and constitutes the 

 work of the Astronomer Royal, Sir Frank Dyson, and his 

 corps of hard-working assistants. 



To-day you go down to Southampton and board a 

 steamer for New York with the knowledge that the ship 

 will carry you there along a certain line ruled across the 

 Western Ocean almost as definitely as a railway track. 

 You take it as a matter of course that every ship on the 

 sea shall find her way direct to her destination, probably 

 without giving a thought to those who have made this 

 possible. 



Yet less than two hundred years ago the great problem 



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