1 Proceedings of the South African Philosophical Society, 



a man, under such an influence, give up the glorious opportunities 

 offered by the clear skies at the Cape, and the instruments at his 

 command ? A thousand times no. He did the utmost that man 

 could do to reduce and publish what must be published for the 

 immediate needs of science ; he toiled in observing and reduction 

 as few directors of observatories ever have, and waited in vain for 

 the provision of an adequate computing force. Had he stopped 

 observing to devote his powers exclusively to reduction, would he 

 have been wise ? I think not. His observations remained capable 

 of reduction, and they have been reduced, and form a monument to 

 his faithful stewardship. 



Sir T. Maclear gently breathed his last on July 14, 1879, and his 

 remains were interred in the Observatory grounds beside those of 

 his wife, not far from the spot where Fallows is buried. The House 

 of Assembly at Cape Town agreed to the following resolution on 

 July 17, 1879 : " That this House desires to express its deep sense 

 of the signal services rendered by the late Sir Thomas Maclear, 

 Knt., F.E.S., F.E.A.S., to the general cause of astronomical and 

 geographical science while in charge of the Eoyal Observatory, Cape 

 Town, and also to the material interests of the Colony in the 

 practical application of his researches ; and, furthermore, its high 

 appreciation of his devotion for so long a period of years to the cause 

 of South African exploration and civilisation, and that this resolution 

 be recorded in the journals of the House." Never w^as a like 

 recognition of service better earned. One only regrets that it was 

 not made on his retirement, when it certainly would have been 

 not less grateful to him who had so worthily earned it than it was 

 to his sorrowing family. 



Sir T. Maclear's successor, Mr. E. J. Stone, was for many years 

 Chief Assistant at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, under Sir 

 George Airy. An accomplished mathematician, and well known to 

 astronomers as the author of many admirable and important papers, 

 h^was of all English astronomers of his time the man required at 

 the Cape. Apart from the plans which he had formed for his work 

 there, it was known that there existed great stores of observations 

 partially reduced and entirely unpublished which had been accumu- 

 lated by Maclear, but which were thus unavailable for the purposes 

 of science. There certainly was no man in England so well fitted 

 to complete their reduction and prepare them for press. With a 

 long training in the rigid and methodical methods of Sir George 

 Airy, with great powers of his own in the organisation and superin- 

 tendence of large masses of computation, with a clearly defined plan 

 in his mind as to the work he meant to do, and a fixed determination 



