1833. ] Progress of European Science. 55 
part of this must doubtless be attributed to the shattered state of the observer’s 
health ; but the fact, that ‘ the index error of two opposite microscopes was ever 
variable in different parts of the instrument, while with three microscopes, at 120° 
distance from each other, or with the whole six, the index error was nearly con- 
stant,’ was sufficiently startling to harrass a person of less sanguine and zealous 
temper. Finally, Mr. FaLtows was of opinion, that some permanent injury had been 
received by the circle and axis, from a fall which the package received whilst it was 
removing from the hold of the ship at the time of landing, but that the mean of the 
Six microscopes might be fully depended upon, since high and low stars, when ob- 
served directly and by reflexion, gave the same position of the horizontal point. 
Before he had come to this conclusion, which seems to have been some time in the 
middle of 1830, sickness deprived him of the services of his assistant, Capt. Ronaxp, 
and Mr. Fatitows was left, unaided, to do the best he might with a transit and mural 
circle. He was relieved from this difficulty by the affection and intelligence of Mrs. 
Faxiows, who offered to undertake the circle observations while he was engaged with 
the transit, a very little instruction sufficed to render her perfectly competent for this 
task : andthe Cape astronomer had like Hevetius, the pleasure of finding his best 
assistant in the partner of his affections. Some of his letters, written at this time, 
express a strong hope and confidence that he should at length be able to justify the 
high expectations which had been formed of the observatory, and that his work 
would bear a comparison in accuracy, though not in extent, with that of any other 
establishment. 
“* But the labours of the observatory were too much for a constitution already 
much enfeebled by previous illness. He had suffered very severely from a coup de 
soleil, soon after his arrival at the Cape, while fixing the small transit ; and besides 
some less serious complaints, experienced a dangerous attack of scarlet fever in the 
summer of 1830, from which he seems never to have fully recovered. In the begin- 
ning of 1831, his health was visibly impaired, but he could not be induced to leave 
the observatory before the equinox. ‘Towards the end of March, he became inca- 
pable of struggling any longer with the disease, and went to Simon’s Town : but it 
was now too late, and he breathed his last on the 25th July, 1831, in the forty-third 
year of his age.” 
Mr. T. HENDERSON, well known as one of the most active and enlightened culti- 
vators of astronomy, has been appointed to succeed Mr. Fatuows, with Mr. 
MeEapows, as his assistant. 
Captain Foster (known as the companion of Capt. Parry in his voyage to the 
north pole) was unfortunately drowned while descending the River Chagres, in a 
canoe, towards his ship the Chanticleer, then lying at anchor. He had nearly com- 
pleted his experimental voyage, the object of which was to swing Kater’s convertible 
pendulum near the equator, and in various places in the southern hemisphere. He 
had performed this task at fourteen different places, and had amassed a series of 
1017 observations, arranged with such system in printed registers that there will 
be little difficulty in digesting the results. 
M. Pons belonged to the observatory of Marseilles, where he became known from 
his steady attention to the discovery of comets : indeed in the beginning of his 
career he was put at the head of an observatory at Lucca by Maria Louisa of Bour- 
bon, with provision that he should receive 100 dollars from the Queen’s purse for 
every comet he might discover ! 
