XV111 



Presi dent's A cldress 



kept in view, and the Australian astronomers were communi- 

 cated with on the subject. It was eventually arranged that 

 Australia should establish an observing station at Port 

 Darwin, and that a member of the British observing party, 

 at that time on its way to Brisbane, would, at the cost of the 

 British Government, establish an observatory at Singapore, 

 and do the requisite work there. The several colonial astro- 

 nomers communicated with their respective Governments, 

 asking authority to act in the matter, which was at 

 once granted, each colony agreeing to contribute towards the 

 expense of the expedition. A gentleman who had already had 

 experience in transit work at our Observatory was selected for 

 the task. The British observers came here on their way to Bris- 

 bane, and arranged all the necessary preliminaries. The Aus- 

 tralian observer got to Port Darwin on the 29th December, 

 erected his observatory, and secured the requisite observa- 

 tions for local time under most difficult circumstances, for it 

 was the wet season, and with the valuable aid and co-opera- 

 tion of the telegraph officers at that place completed a very 

 satisfactory series of signals with Captain Darwin, at Singa- 

 pore, and Captain Helb (of Batavia), at Banjoewangie, as 

 well as with the observatories of Adelaide and Melbourne. 

 He returned to Melbourne early in March, after a thoroughly 

 successful expedition. The results are not yet completed, 

 but there is little doubt the longitude thus determined will 

 be a little more than a second of time less than that hitherto 

 adopted, showing the latter to have been correct within the 

 limits of the moon-culminative method. There is one 

 element of uncertainty still remaining, due to the number 

 of steps by which the whole difference has been obtained, 

 and to the chance of small errors in each being cumulative, 

 but when the whole work shall have been revised I have no 

 doubt this uncertainty will vanish. 



Our members will be glad to hear that the Observatory is 

 to be shortly furnished with a new transit circle, equal in 

 dimensions and optical capacity to any in the world, and 

 fitted to cope with any class of meridian observation we 



