11 



Glasgow, and after a short course of practical instruction at Green- 

 wich, lie took charge of the Observatory at Glasgow, and continued 

 to hold that post until the time of his death in 1892. 



The Observatory was provided with an Ertel Transit Circle of six 

 French inches aperture, and the chief astronomical work of the 

 Observatory daring Professor Grant's tenure of office was done with 

 this, instrument. The staff at the Glasgow Observatory was not a 

 large one, and the salaries attached to the assistantships were so 

 small that Grant had great difficulty in retaining for any length of 

 time the services of skilled assistants, but he was able, by great per- 

 severance and personal devotion to the work, to complete a catalogue 

 of 6415 stars, reduced to the epoch 1870, and a catalogue of 2156 

 stars for the epoch 1890. The last proof sheet of the second catalogue 

 was only passed by him on the morning of his death. Many of the 

 stars in these two catalogues have not been recently observed at any 

 other observatory, and the places are, therefore, comparatively of 

 greater value than would otherwise be the case, and the results have 

 already been found valuable for very closely approximate determina- 

 tions of the proper motions of many stars not before known, and for 

 the reduction of comet observations. 



The results, however, can hardly be regarded as strictly indepen- 

 dent determinations. For reasons which appeared sufficient to Grant 

 it was thought expedient to compare the places of the stars observed 

 at Glasgow with existing recent observations at Greenwich of the 

 same stars, and to deduce corrections for the Glasgow places ob- 

 served since 1865 to render them in mean results identical with the 

 Greenwich results. The corrections thus found were then applied to 

 the places of the Glasgow catalogue, which should, therefore, not 

 differ systematically from those which would have been obtained 

 had these stars been observed at Greenwich. There are, of course, 

 advantages in such a method of proceeding when the observations 

 have been made with an instrument of a class not suitable for inde- 

 pendent work, but much is lost by the want of independence of the 

 results if the instrument is a reliable one. It is, however, impossible 

 for anyone not well acquainted with the Glasgow instrument to judge 

 of the necessity for the course pursued by Grant in this case. 



Besides the observations made with the Transit Circle, many extra- 

 meridional observations were made with the 9-inch equatorial by 

 Cooke, the public clocks of Glasgow were controlled from the 

 Observatory, and regular photographic meteorological observations 

 maintained. 



Professor Grant took part in the Solar Eclipse expedition to Spain 

 in 1860. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1865. 



Professor Grant married September 3, 1874, Elizabeth Emma, 

 daughter of A. C. Davison, of Newcastle, New South Wales, by 



