."308 Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



the graphical treatment which I had applied to the Moon, as above 

 mentioned, to the case of comets, and in December, 1881, read a 

 paper on the subject to the Royal Astronomical Society ; but a more 

 detailed article on this subject forms a chapter (Chapter VI) in Mr. 

 G. F. Chambers's Handbook of Astronomy (4th edition, 8vo, 1889). It 

 shows how predictions and reductions, having a very considerable 

 amount of accuracy, may be made by the use of careful diagrams, and 

 involving only a moderate practical knowledge of spherical 

 trigonometry. My last work has been that of obtaining on the spot, 

 by observation of the sun or stars, requisite data, and the application 

 of the formulae for finding the places of stars at distant epochs, so as to 

 establish a connection between the orientation of Greek temples with 

 certain stars which at some period (assumed to be the time of their 

 foundation) were coincident at their rising or setting with the direction 

 of the axes of the temples under consideration. The rates of apparent 

 movement in the stars, owing to the precession of the equinoxes, giving 

 dates for the foundation of the temples, on the theory that they then 



coincided, as above remarked. It is presumed that the object sought 

 'by the ancients in so orienting their temples was to obtain from the 



stars at their rising or setting, as the case might be, a sufficient 

 warning of the approach of dawn for preparation for the critical 

 moment of sunrise, when the sacrifices were to be offered." 



The concluding paragraph of the above statement refers to the fact 

 that, after Sir J. Norman Lockyer had suggested the possibility of 

 estimating the age of some of the Egyptian temples from the direction 



of their axis, as explained in the "Proceedings of the Royal Society," 

 Mr. Penrose undertook the examination of many of the Greek temples 

 from the same point of view, the results of which, confirming the sug- 

 gestion, and explaining what may be called the principle of orientation 



observed in the erection of many later edifices, were published in the 

 .same " Proceedings," as well as in the "Philosophical Transactions"; 

 his latest work on this subject having been executed in conjunction 

 with Sir J. Norman Lockyer in regard to Stonehenge, which, having 

 been found by careful observation to have been erected on the same 

 principles as the Egyptian and Greek temples, enabled a date to be 

 approximately assigned to it. 



Mr. Penrose's publications w.ere not numerous ; besides his classical 

 work on the Parthenon, that on the Prediction of Occultations in this 

 place chiefly demands notice, but it must not be omitted that he was 

 the author of the article on Sir Christopher Wren in the " Dictionary 

 of National Biography." He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society 

 in 1892, and in 1898 received the honorary degree of Doctor of 

 Letters from the University of Cambridge, and the Doctorate of Civil 

 Law of Oxford. He was also President of the Royal Institution of 



