xliv Pivceedings of the Soiitli African PhilosojMcal Society. 



which his instruments were capable. But he was not the man tO' 

 fight an uphill battle with neglect at home, and to compel Fate, in 

 the shape of official indifference or incapacity, to do his bidding and 

 raise the status and equipment of the Observatory to the ideal level 

 which he claimed for it. That required a dogged persistence and 

 force of character of another kind. 



But Henderson, by his own methods, attained results of high 

 nnportance in many directions. 



His self-sacrifice helped to remove many of the difficulties of his 

 successors, and he overcame the want of official assistance at the 

 Cape by taking the observations to Edinburgh with him and reducing 

 them there. In 1834 he was appointed Astronomer Eoyal for Scot- 

 land, but he continued to devote all the time that could be spared 

 from his other duties to the reduction of his Cape observations. 

 They were all ultimatelj^ published, and proved how successfully and 

 faithfully Henderson had worked. He gave to the world a catalogue 

 of the principal southern stars of an equal accuracy with the Work 

 of the best observatories in the Northern Hemisphere, and which 

 will in all time be regarded as the true basis of the most refined 

 Sidereal Astronomy of the Southern Hemisphere. His observations 

 gave by far the most accurate determination of the moon's parallax 

 then available ; they determined the longitude of the Cape with a 

 precision Avhich refined modern methods, with the aid of the electric 

 telegraph, have barely changed. Above all, Henderson was the first 

 man to produce reliable evidence of the measurable parallax of any 

 fixed star. 



Henderson's successor was Mr. (afterwards Sir) Thomas Maclear. 

 At the time of his appointment to the Cape he was practising his 

 profession of doctor of medicine at Biggleswade, but was well known 

 as one of the most competent and energetic amateur astronomers of 

 his day. 



Maclear reached the Cape on January 5, 1834, and took up his 

 residence at the still desolate looking Observatory. 



Ten days afterwards Sir John Herschel also arrived at the Cape 

 and installed himself, his family and his instruments at Feldhausen, 

 Newlands, within three miles of the Eoyal Observatory, and the next 

 four years were spent in happy mutual intercourse between the 

 astronomers, each assisting with heart and soul the labours of the 

 other. 



Sir John Herschel came to the Cape to catalogue the nebulae of 

 the Southern Hemisphere on the same plan as that on which his 

 father had catalogued the nebulae of the Northern Hemisphere. 

 His expedition was a purely private one, carried out with his own 



