(Ixx) 



APPENDIX. 



SPEECH DELIVEEED ON THE OCCASION OF UNVEILING, BY HIS 

 EXCELLENCY THE HON. SIE W. HELY - HUTCHINSON, THE 

 INSCRIPTION STONE OF THE TELESCOPE AND OBSERVATORY, 

 PRESENTED BY MR. FRANK McCLEAN TO THE ROYAL OBSER- 

 VATORY, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, SEPTEMBER 19, 1901. 



May it please Your Excellency, — The ceremony which I am 

 about to ask Your Excellency to perform is one regarding which 

 some explanation seems to be necessary. We all understand the 

 significance of the laying of a foundation stone or the formal opening 

 of a new building, but it is evident that the function of to-day 

 represents neither the one nor the other. Your Excellency will 

 therefore perhaps permit me to enter into a short account of the 

 origin and history of this great telescope and of the observatory 

 under the dome of which we are now assembled. If in so doing I 

 appear at first somewhat discursive, I trust to be forgiven on account 

 of the interest of the subject and of the occasion. Until about 

 forty years ago the science of astronomy concerned itself chiefly 

 with the positions of celestial objects. It occupied itself with the 

 observation of their a.pparent places in the sky, tracing the origin of 

 their motions, and finally computing and predicting these motions 

 for all past and future time. It has measured not only the dimensions 

 and determined the elements of our planetary system, but it has also 

 made no small progress towards a knowledge of the dimensions of 

 the Sidereal System and of the amount and direction of our sun's 

 motion through space. It has catalogued the stars to a high order 

 of magnitude, and determined many facts as to their distribution in 

 space. There is no subject to which higher genius has applied itself 

 than that of unravelling the celestial motions and the laws which 

 govern them. Thus the old astronomy, from the difficulties of her 

 task, the beauty and precision of her methods, and the proved 

 accuracy of her predictions, has earned for herself the acknowledged 

 position of queen of the sciences. But her task is by no means 

 ended, for the so-called old astronomy still provides, and for ever 



