MEMOIR OF SIR THOMAS MAKDOUGALL BRISBANE. 599 
residence of four years, he had more than doubled the amount. At his own 
expense, he introduced good breeds of horses, and promoted the cultivation 
of the vine, sugar-cane, cotton, and tobacco. One grand feature of his admi- 
nistration was the entire toleration and protection which he gave to all 
Christians. 
At Parramatta, fourteen miles from Sydney, he erected an observatory, which 
has been fitly styled the Greenwich of the Southern Hemisphere. It was furnished 
with the best instruments by TroveuTon and Reicuenpacn. Some idea may 
be formed of the labours which, besides his duties as Governor, he voluntarily 
undertook, when it is stated, that he and his assistants, Herr RUMKER, and 
Mr Duntop, fixed the position and catalogued 7385 stars, hitherto little known 
to astronomers. For this magnificent work, “The Brisbane Catalogue of 
Stars,” he received perhaps the highest honour of his life,—certain it is he felt 
it so. The glory of the many battles he had won, or helped to win, had been 
rewarded by knighthood and a baronetcy, with stars and medals; but the gold 
medal awarded him by the Royal Astronomical Society outshone, in his esti- 
mation, all his other honours. 
The address delivered by the President of the Society, Sir J. F. Herscnet, 
on that occasion, is so highly honourable to Sir Jonn, and so complimentary 
to Sir Tuomas, that I make no apology for its quotation :*—‘“ In pursuance 
of the award of your Council which you have just heard, I have now to call 
your attention to the subject of the honorary marks of this Society’s appro- 
bation, which it is part of our business at this meeting to bestow. The selec- 
tion of objects on which such distinction may most deservingly and most use- 
fully be conferred has been, in this instance, of much interest and some diffi- 
culty, not from a paucity of claims, but from their variety and magnitude. On 
all sides, both abroad and at home, the spirit of astronomical research and dis- 
covery has been diligently alive. The great work which has been commenced 
on the continent, for the determination of the places of all the stars of our 
hemisphere in zones, has been continued with a patient ardour to which no 
words can do justice. The heavens have been ransacked for double stars, and 
the results of the search developing a most rich and unlooked for harvest of 
striking discoveries, being the first fruits of the great telescope of FRAUENHOFER, 
have been consigned to immortality, in a work which does honour to its age 
and nation, and which has already been brilliantly rewarded in another quarter. 
The ingenuity of one of our own countrymen has placed new, simple, and power- 
ful means in the hands of observers for verifying the stability of their instru- 
ments, and determining their fluctuations; and in every quarter, to go no further 
in this detail, an activity worthy of the high ends and dignity of our science has 
been remarkably displayed. 
* Transactions Royal Astronomical Society, vol, iii. p. 399. 
