MEMOIR OF SIR THOMAS MAKDOUGALL BRISBANE. 603 
moment to figure the delight its celebrated discoverer must have experienced to 
find the calculations on whose exactness he had pledged himself thus verified 
beyond the gaze of European eyes, and this strange visitant, gliding, as if anxious 
to elude pursuit, into its primitive obscurity, thus arrested on the very eve of its 
escape, and held up to mankind a trophy at once of the certainty of our theories 
and the progress of our civilization. 
‘‘Observations of the length of the pendulum were not neglected by Sir 
THOMAS BrisBaNE; and the determination of this important element at Parramatta 
forms the subject of a highly interesting and valuable communication to the 
Royal Society, and printed by them in their Transactions for 1823, and discussed 
by Captain KarTer, with his usual ease and exactness. 
“ The remainder, and indeed the great mass of the observations made with the 
mural circle and transit instrument, have at different periods been communicated 
to the Royal Society, and are, for the present, deposited in its archives. 
“ Forming our judgment only upon those of which an account has been publicly 
read at meetings of that illustrious body, but which are understood to constitute 
only a comparatively small part of the whole, they form one of the most inter- 
esting and important series which has ever been made, and must ever be regarded 
as marking a decided era in the history of southern astronomy. 
“Tt is for this long catalogue of observations, whether scattered through the 
journals of Europe, printed in our own memoirs, or deposited as a precious charge. 
in the care of a body so capable of appreciating their merits, but still more for 
the noble and disinterested example set by him in the establishment of an obser- 
vatory on such a scale, in so distant a station, and which would have equally 
merited the present notice had every observation perished on its voyage home, that 
your Council have thought Sir Taomas M. Brispane deserving the distinction of 
a medal of this Society, which, as he is unable personally to attend this meeting, 
I will now deliver to his proxy, Mr Sourtn. 
“ Mr SourH, we request you to transmit to Sir THomas BrisBANz this medal, 
accompanied with the strongest expressions of our admiration of the patriotic 
and princely support he has given to astronomy in regions so remote. It will 
be a source of honest pride to him while he lives, to reflect that the first brilliant 
trait of Australian history marks the era of his government, and that his name 
will be identified with the future glories of that colony, in ages yet to come, as 
the founder of her science. It is a distinction truly worthy of a British governor. 
The colonial acquisitions of other countries have been but too frequently wrested 
from unoffending inhabitants, and the first pages of their history blackened by 
ferocious conquests and tyrannical violence. The treasuries of gold and silver 
they have yielded—the fruits of rapine—have proved the bane of those who 
gathered them ; and in return, ignorance and bigotry have been the boons be- 
stowed on them by their parent nations. Here, however, is a brighter prospect. 
