ASTROXOMICAL AND METEOROLOGICAL WORKERS. 47 



may be stated that he made the longitude of Dawes' Point 

 (called Cattle Point) lOh. 4m. 47 "Ss. east of Greenwich ; the 

 recent value found by cable is lOh. 4m. 49'5s., a wonderfully 

 accurate result considering the instruments of those days ! He 

 mentions that the Spanish Admiral D'Espenosa found the 

 longitude of the same place to be lOh. 4m. 51s. These are 

 remarkable results, and well worth recording as the earliest 

 careful attempts to find the longitude of Sydney ; there was far 

 less uncertainty about it than Flinders himself thought, but a 

 recognition of the care and ability wliich he brought to bear upon 

 his work is one of the greatest honours which we can pay to his 

 memory. He made the latitude 33° 51' 45-6", but there is not 

 now, unfortunately, at least so far as I can learn, any clue to the 

 exact part of Cattle Point on which he set up his instruments ; 

 the latitude of the present Observatory is 33° 51' 41", and that of 

 the extreme point (Dawes' Point) is 33° 51' 21", so that he was 

 very little out. 



While at Sydney he also determined the magnetic variation 

 and made it 8° 51' east, a result quite as remarkable for its 

 accuracy as the others. 



Although, not bearing directly upon astronomy or meteorology 

 in Australia, it is important to note that during his work on the 

 Australian coast Flinders discovered the cause of the local 

 attraction of the ship on the compass, and the account of it is best 

 given in his own words (loc. cit. p. 1, Preface) : "A variety of obser- 

 vations with the compass had shewn the magnetic needle to differ 

 from itself, sometimes as much as 6° or even 7° in or very near 

 the same place, and the differences seemed to be subject to 

 regular laws but it was so extraordinary in the present state of 

 navigation that they should not have been before discoverd, and 

 a mode of preventing or correcting them ascertained, that my 

 deductions and almost the facts were distrusted ; and in the 

 first construction of the charts I had feared to deviate much 

 from the usual practice. Applications was now made to the 

 Admiralty for experiments to be tried with the compass on 

 board different ships ; and the results in five cases being conform- 

 able to one of the three laws before deduced, which alone 

 was susceptible of proof in England, the whole were adopted 

 without reserve, and the variations and bearings throughout the 

 voyage underwent a systematic correction," Such is the simple 

 story of the discovery of one of the most important facts con- 

 nected with the use of the compass at sea that has ever been 

 mS,de. It is usual in books upon magnetism to say that the fact 

 of the ship's attraction on the compass was first observed by Mr. 

 Males, the Astronomer of Captain Cook, when he was sailing 

 along the coast of New Holland ; but if that be true it is strange 

 the Admirality knew nothing about it, and that in the Navy 

 generally it was an unknown fact ; certain it is, that Flinders was 



