On the Work of the Past Year in Astronomy and Celestial Physics* 



By J. S. Webb. 



[Read before the Otago Institute, 11 th September, 1872.] 



"What I am about to say this evening will not fulfil tlie promise of tte title 

 under which it has been announced, but I hope that it will be of none the less 

 interest on that account. Indeed, any attempt properly to sketch the work of 

 a twelvemonth in such a wide range of research, within the limits of a single 

 address, must of necessity end in a barren and uninstructive catalogue of 

 details. I have only selected for remark a few matters of the greatest interest 

 to all, and in regard to those have confined myself almost wholly to the part 

 of a narrator. 



Before entering on the proper subject of this address, 1 cannot refrain from 

 expressing a regret, which I have no doubt you all share with me, at the fact 

 recently made public that the Astronomer Boyal has replied in discouraging 

 terms to the communications addressed to him by the Astronomical Society of 

 Christchurch on the subject of the forrnation of an efficient Observatory at 

 that city. On the last anniversary of the foundation of the sister Province — 

 on the day of its attaining the mature age of twenty-one years — in one of 

 those bursts of genial enthusiasm so often inspired by the celebration of 

 anniversaries, especially where those celebrations take the form of public 

 dinners, and which do occasionally lead to very useful results, it was 

 determined by some of our public-spirited fellow-colonists in Christchurch that 

 a lasting memorial of the day they were celebrating should be enterprised, and 

 their aspirations (determined by what influences I cannot say) took definite 

 shape in the formation of the society I have alluded to, under whose ausj^ices 

 it is proposed to establish such a memorial in the form of an Astronomical 

 Observatory. This society set about its work in right good earnest, and I 

 think we ought most cordially to wish it success. Within a few years from 

 the present time it is almost certain that an Observatory will be founded in 

 New Zealand. Those of you who take a deep interest in those sciences to 

 which we owe our knowledge of what is beyond the little globe on which we 

 live, will join with me in desiring that this Observatory shall be as near to us 

 as may be. It seems, however, to be very probable that if our friends in 

 Christchurch fail in this creditable enterprise, Auckland will be the chosen 

 spot. In every list that I have seen of the places from which it is intended 

 that British astronomers shall observe the transit of Yenus over the sun's 

 disc, in 1874, I notice that Auckland is mentioned. How far this is authori- 

 tative I do not know, but it is now nearly two years since it was mooted at a 

 meeting of the Auckland Institute that some steps should be taken to secure 



