xlii Proceedings of the South African Philosophical Society. 



During 1829 and 1830 observing was prosecuted with vigour. In 

 the latter year Fallows's excellent assistant, Captain Eonald, fell sick, 

 and Fallows was left alone to do what should have been the work of 

 four men — a task in which he was most ably assisted by his wife, 

 whose aptitude and intelligence were such that with very little 

 instruction she was soon competent to make observations with bhe 

 Mural Circle whilst Fallows himself observed with the transit 

 instrument. 



The cares and anxieties which he endured enfeebled his constitu- 

 tion. Fallows had left England full of high aspiration, full of 

 strength and energy which it was his ambition to devote to the 

 great scientific task before him. The plans for the Observatory 

 w4iich he had approved before leaving England were delayed four 

 years before he received them at the Cape. The Whigs, in a fit of 

 economy, suddenly cut £10,000 off the estimates for completing the 

 Observatory, and the building was left without the necessary out- 

 houses and servant's accommodation, without roads or easy meansf 

 of communication, without sources of food-supply — a mere block of 

 masonry on a barren hill. His two original assistants failed him, 

 one suddenly leaving him, and the other had to be dismissed for 

 misconduct. By a gross oversight on the part of the maker, the 

 great Mural Circle was sent out in an imperfect condition. The 

 worry and perplexity which this caused him by apparently 

 anomalous results (which fortunately affect his observations only in 

 detail but not sensibly in the mean result) are stated on high 

 authority to have been the means of shortening his life. 



In the summer of 1830 he experienced a severe attack of scarlet 

 fever from which his enfeebled constitution never rallied. In 

 March, 1831, he reluctantly went to Simon's Bay for rest, and there 

 died on the 25th of July, 1831, in the 43rd year of his age. 



His widow conveyed the manuscripts of his observations to 

 England, and they were finally reduced and published by Sir George 

 Airy. The catalogue contains the right ascensions of 425 stars 

 observed with the transit instrument, but of these the declinations 

 of only 88 were observed with the mural circle. 



Fallows's successor was Mr. Thomas Henderson, a man who by 

 his inborn genius raised himself by degrees from the position of a 

 lawyer's apprentice in Dundee to that of one of the most accom- 

 plished scientific men of his time. He reached the Cape in April, 

 1832, and, together with his assistant, Lieutenant Meadows, worked 

 unremittingly for thirteen months, and then resigned the post. 

 Henderson was not physically a strong man, and it was impossible 

 for the strongest adequately to fulfil the duties of his office without 



