EARLY HISTORY OF THE NAUTICAL ALMANAC. l7 



In Dr. MaskeJyne's account of tlie Greenwich observations of the 

 transit of Venus, he refers to Mr. Hitchins as "a gentleman 

 well acquainted with astronomy and astronomical calculations, 

 who has made and examined many belonging to the ''Nautical 

 Almanac," and has been so obliging as to come here and assist 

 me in making astronomical observations during the absence of 

 my assistant, who is gone to the North Cape, by appointment of 

 the Royal Society, to observe the transit of Venus there." j- It 

 is to be hoped that this serious error of date, probably owing 

 to a slip of the pen of one of Malachy Hitchins's most intimate 

 scientific friends, will not be further perpetuated in any future 

 history of the county ; and it would be well if the possessors of 

 copies of the two works I have mentioned, and of any other in 

 which the erroneous statement occurs, would make the cor- 

 rection in accordance with the facts recorded in the following 

 paragraph, which corresponds with that containing the error : — 



"Mr. Hitchins was soon noticed by the mathematicians, and 

 recommended to the Rev. Nevil Maskelyne, Astronomer Royal, 

 to assist him at the Royal Observatory in the calculations of the 

 "Nautical Almanac;" and when Mr. Bayley, the sole assistant 

 of that gentleman went to the North Cape in 1769, to observe 

 the transit of Venus, Mr. Hitchins temporarily took his place 

 and observed with the astronomical instruments till the return of 

 Mr. Bayley to the Observatory." 



Of Malachy Hitchins's four sons, one only appears to have 

 been connected in any way with his father's scientific pursuits. 

 I believe that he assisted his father occasionally in the calcula- 

 tions of the Almanac. With reference to the remark made in 

 Gilbert's "Cornwall," vol. ii, p. 224, and in Lake's "History," 

 vol. ii, p. 138, that this the third son, William Malachy, "filled 

 the office for some time that his father had occupied at the Royal 

 Observatory," I find recorded in the Observatory MSS that his 

 service lasted only about eleven weeks, from April 8 to June 22, 

 1787, when he was about seventeen years of age. 



In concluding these brief notices of the association of the 

 Rev. Malachy Hitchins with the early history of our national 

 ephemeris, I may remark that all his manuscripts that I have 

 seen, both his ordinary hand- writing and his calculations, are 



t Phil. Trans., vol. Mii, p. 360. 



