130 JOHN TEBBUTT. 



up a nebulous object which he could not identify with any in the 

 catalogues. In the forenoon of April 3rd, civil time, Mr. Gale 

 communicated his discovery to me by telegraph, and in the even- 

 ing of the same day I succeeded in finding the object, but not 

 without having to wait for upwards of an hour for a large bank 

 of cloud to disappear from the south-west horizon. As some 

 alterations were at the time in progress for enlarging the room 

 which accommodates the eight inch equatorial, I had recourse to 

 the four and a-half inch instrument. 



Seven measures with a square bar-micrometer showed that the 

 object was moving due east, and must therefore be a comet. As 

 soon as the comparisons were reduced on the following day, I 

 dispatched a telegram to the Melbourne Observatory. The 

 following is an exact copy of it from the impression in my 

 Observatory letter-book : — " Comet discovered by Gale of Sydney 

 on first instant. Three days eight hours forty-three minutes 

 Windsor M.T. R.A. two hours thirty minutes forty-eight seconds. 

 Declination south fifty-five degrees thirty-five minutes. Motion 

 easterly. Round with bright condensation." At Melbourne the 

 Windsor mean time was reduced to Greenwich mean time, and 

 the telegram was then converted into cypher and cabled to Kiel, 

 but unfortunately the date of discovery was omitted. For some 

 weeks therefore there was a misapprehension in Europe as to this 

 date. It was commonly assumed that Mr. Gale had discovered 

 the comet on April 3rd, and it was not till about May 16th that 

 my report by mail reached Kiel, and the misapprehension was 

 removed. 



On the evening of April 4th measures of the comet were 

 repeated by me with the four and a-half inch equatorial, but after 

 that date all my observations were made with the same micro- 

 meter on the eight-inch instrument. On the whole the weather 

 was remarkably favourable for observation, and I succeeded in 

 securing positions on twenty-seven evenings. These comprise 

 two hundred and ninety-nine comparisons and forty-eight com- 



