254 Biographical Sketch of the late Astronomer Caldecott. 
had been better done elsewhere ; and that the astronomers 
would be better and more honestly employed in making mag- 
netical and meteorological observations with their astrono- 
mical funds ; a small portion of which, if spent in the above 
manner, would be sufficient, it was contended, to create new 
sciences of observation. Nervously anxious that the means 
so singularly at his disposal for the advancement of science, 
should be applied in the most unexceptionable manner, Mr 
Caldecott unfortunately was carried away by the above-men- 
tioned peculiar views ; and abandoning astronomy, applied 
himself to what was pointed out by so influential a body at 
home as a more proper subject of investigation. But though 
such vast sums have since been spent on magnetism and me- 
teorology ; though so many public and private observatories 
have been established by various nations; and exploring ex- 
peditions sent by sea to the Antarctic as well as to the Are- 
tic regions ; still those sciences are far from being on a sure 
scientific basis ; and even the instruments and methods of em- 
ploying them are so uncertain and insecure, that the value of 
the numerous observations accumulated not only by Mr Cal- ~ 
decott, but by the other magneticians and meteorologists of 
the day, is doubtful in the extreme, even in the interest which 
they may excite after the present hour. Meanwhile the tide 
of astronomical discovery passed him by ; the honour of add- 
ing to that accumulating number of exact determinations of 
standard quantities, which serve to establish old discoveries 
in the realms of space, and lead to new ones,—was lost ; and 
the certainty of procuring for his enlightened patron, the Rajah 
of Travancore, and for the country of his adoption, an estate 
in the zodiac, more enduring than all the empires of the 
Kast, was removed from him for ever. 
In addition to all this, Mr Caldecott, though a good ob- 
server, is said by an intimate friend to have been deficient in 
mechanical skill ; a serious failing in an astronomical obser- 
vatory so far removed as Trevandrum. Hence, he never felt 
that perfect confidence in the instruments, and the results 
procured by them, which is only the case, and can only be, 
when the observer is both theoretically and practically an 
optician and a mechanician; when he has examined every _ 
possible source of error in the instruments; when he has i 
