2 REPORT—1840. 
to astronomical science, nor did its site encourage any attempt to repair 
it; but the strong desire existing both in the College and among the 
citizens of Glasgow for the erection of a suitable establishment, speedily 
relieved his embarrassment, and by the union of the two parties and 
the patronage of Government, means were soon provided to accomplish 
all good ends. The Professor then adverted at some length to the 
principles on which the plan of the Institution was arranged. It was 
his strong conviction, that although the repetition of the same observa- 
tions at different observatories was to a certain extent necessary for the 
elimination of errors, this had been much overdone, and time and labour 
thereby lost. He was strengthened by the opinion of all the eminent 
men with whom he corresponded, in his resolution not to enter in Glas- 
gow on the line pursued with such brilliant success at Greenwich, Edin- 
burgh, Armagh, &c., but to devote the new observatory to investiga- 
tions which lay for the most part out of the way of these other establish- 
ments, and which in the present state of astronomy are numerous and 
important. It was a first point with him therefore to see to the provi- 
sion of an efficient equatorial, and, if easily attainable, a large reflector. 
Circumstances had hitherto prevented the completion of the arrange- 
ments in reference to the equatorial, but these would soon be over- 
come, and he could venture to promise an instrument of this kind of 
first-rate power. He had obtained almost by accident two reflectors, by 
Ramage, one of 25 focal feet length, to which he meant to affix Sir John 
Herschel’s collimator, and another of 55 feet in length and 23 inches 
diameter. This one was fit only for occasional observations, and he 
did not in the mean time intend to attempt to give it more than a mere 
meridional sweep. But although the instruments now referred to may 
be the ones chiefly used in the researches to which the observatory 
will in the first instance be devoted, a good meridian instrument was 
clearly necessary, inasmuch as several of the inquiries about to en- 
gage them depended upon the nicest determinations of this descrip- 
tion. Accordingly, urged by the feeling that in so far as they could go, 
every department of the institution should be equipped in the best 
style, they ordered from Munich a transit circle, the telescope of 
which is 8 feet focal length, and 64 inches diameter. The Professor 
described this instrument at length from diagrams. He called particular 
attention to the fact that it read by microscopes, and that as the circle 
carrying the microscopes was not in the same place as the circle with 
the graduated limb, the objection having reference to the hazard from 
traction, forcibly urged by Professor Airy, was entirely obviated. The 
Professor then stated that a magnetical observatory, with the three in- 
struments, at which Gauss’s terms would be noted, was meant to be 
attached to the other establishment, and that he hoped tobe able to pay 
attention to some of the more important problems in meteorology. He 
could not promise success, but this he could well promise, that his life 
should be thoroughly and singly devoted—now that the means were 
in his power—to the realization of objects of importance to astro- 
nomy. 
