ADDRESS BY THEODORE REUNERT. Y. 



that petition was very favourably received, and duly acted upon, 

 and the meteorological observatory under the direction of Mr. 

 R. T. A. Innes, on the most commanding position overlooking Johan- 

 nesburg, has given its name to one of the rising suburbs of this 

 town. Thanks to the liberality of the Bezuidenhout family, the 

 Observatory has secured, at a nominal cost, a site covering ten and 

 a half acres in a situation which can never be obstructed by future 

 building operations. Our belief in the excellence of this site was 

 very strongly confirmed when some of the astronomical members of 

 the British Association met the High Commissioner there on the 30th 

 August last, this party consisting of : — 



Sir David Gill, His Majesty's Astronomer at the Cape of Good 



Hope ; 

 Dr. A. A. Rambaut, Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford; 

 Mr. A. R. Hinks, Newall Observatory, Cambridge ; 

 Dr. C. J. Joly, Royal Astronomer of Ireland ; 

 Dr. 0. Backlund, Director of the Imperial Observatory, Pul- 



kowa ; 

 Professor P. Harzer, Director of the Royal Observatory, Kiel; 

 Dr. A. S. Donner, The Observatory, Helsingfors ; 

 Professor J. C. Kapteyn, The Astronomical Laboratory, 



Groningen ; 

 Dr. W. de Sitter, The Astronomical Laboratory, Groningen; 

 Lord Rosse, K.P., F.R.S., Parsonstown ; 



who unanimously expressed the opinion that it was one of the finest 

 sites in the world for the erection of a large telescope, both on 

 account of its actual position, and because of the great need of such 

 a telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. Thus, for instance, Pro- 

 fessor Kapteyn said: — " In all researches bearing on the construc- 

 tion of the universe of stars, the astronomical problem of the age, 

 the investigator was hindered by our ignorance of the southern 

 heavens. Work was accumulating in the north, which was to a great 

 extent useless, until similar work was done here. He was convinced 

 that the erection of a large telescope here would be of the greatest 

 service to Astronomy generally. " 



Had time permitted it would have been a grateful task to go 

 over the eleven sections of the British Association in succession, and 

 enumerate the illustrious men representing each branch of science 

 who were among our visitors, as well as to point to the probable 

 practical outcome of the discussions and recommendations of the 

 meetings held, both here and in Capetown, but to do this would be 

 far beyond the limits of a single address. My successor in office 

 will have the pleasant duty, I hope, of reviewing the promised 

 volumes, which are more likely to be three or four than merely the 

 single volume anticipated by Sir George Darwin. This evening 

 I propose to confine myself to reflections suggested by the 

 work done in one of the eleven sections only, namely, that 



