New Grand Observatory for the Russian Empire. 75 



heavens to George III. of England, who judiciously supplied 

 to the greatest observer who has yet appeared, viz. to Herschel, 

 the means of entirely devoting himself to his favourite science. 

 The king was himself an amateur, and had at Richmond a 

 beautiful observatory, where, in 1769, he observed the transit 

 of Venus across the sun. Nearer the present time has been 

 founded the Seeberg observatory, near Gotha, under the pro- 

 tection of Duke Ernest. This observatory, raised under the 

 direction of De Zach, is the first on the continent which has 

 been constructed with a complete knowledge of the necessary ap- 

 paratus for an establishment of the kind ; and it has had a 

 great influence upon all the observatories which have subse- 

 quently been built, serving more or less as a model to them all, 

 such as those of Gottingen, Dorpat, Munich, &c. The Duke 

 Ernest was not only a patron of the science, but he deserves to 

 be ranked amongst astronomers, for he bore his share in the ob- 

 servations, and even in many of the deep and extensive calcula- 

 tions. It is from the observatory of Seeberg that for a long 

 time has issued the journal known under the name of " Corre- 

 spondance Nouvelle^'' and published by De Zach and Lindenau, 

 and which has greatly contributed to the advancement of the 

 science throughout the whole of Germany. What the reigning 

 monarch of Prussia has done for astronomy is well known, by 

 his founding the observatory of Kdnigsberg, by his esta- 

 blishing a new observatory at Berlin, as also by attracting to 

 his dominions two men whose names are inseparably asso- 

 ciated with the history of the science, viz. Messrs Bessel and 

 Encke. The enlightened interest which Frederick, King of 

 Denmark, takes in astronomy, is likewise well known, as also 

 the protection and consideration which he confers upon artists, 

 and the methods by which he stimulates the zeal of the astro- 

 nomers of his own kingdom and of other countries, by the deep 

 interest which he takes in their labours. These latter facts are 

 too notorious to require more to be said concerning them. 



Turn we, then, now to what has been done in our own country, 

 Russia, in behalf of astronomy. It was when Peter the Great 

 founded the Academy of Sciences, that Russia witnessed the rise 

 of its first permanent observatory. This establishment, at a 

 later period, was endowed by Catherine II. with some very va- 

 luable instruments, such as a mural quadrant of Bird's, a reflcc- 



