for the year 1868. lvii 



down the ' outworks of the -universe/ as they have been 

 aptly termed. I need not repeat the admirable and 

 exhaustive arguments by which the importance of such a 

 task was demonstrated in that paper. I will only briefly 

 remind you that about 1,600 nebulous clusters, invisible to 

 northern observers, were brought to their knowledge 

 between 1834 and 1838, by the labours of Sir John 

 Herschel, at the Cape of Good Hope, with instruments far 

 inferior to those which can now be constructed, and that it 

 admits of no doubt that the most valuable results would be 

 attained if his necessarily imperfect observations could be 

 subjected to that closer scrutiny with which Lord Rosse, 

 Mr. Lassells, and others, are now re-examining in Europe 

 the nebulae of the northern sky. Deeply impressed with 

 this conviction the Board of Visitors to the Melbourne 

 Observatories, — of which I have the honour to be chairman, — 

 felt it their duty, some months since, riot merely to recall the 

 attention of the Imperial Government to the subject, but to 

 lay their views before the colonial authorities also. If as 

 yet no further response has been elicited than -a universal 

 recognition of the desirableness of the undertaking, the 

 board do not despair of this beiug followed up ere long by 

 due provision being made for the requisite outlay, either 

 jointly or at the expense of one or other Government. 



It is no slight proof of the interest which the revival of 

 the proposition excites at home, that the president of the 

 Royal Society of Great Britain could find no fitter theme 

 with which to commence his inaugural address on 1st 

 December last, devoting nearly four pages to a detailed ac- 

 count of what is contemplated. Nor is this interest strange, 

 for the department of nebular astronomy, has from first to 

 last been so entirely conducted on British territory, and by 

 British observers, that it would be a national disgrace if it 



