248 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
there may be such institutions at other places within the colony. 
All of these serve as active centres of intellectual life ; they spread 
abroad a taste for the study of natural science, and they largely 
furnish the means for gratifying and cultivating that taste. Any- 
body who is acquainted with the growth of these institutions 
must recognise how large a share they have had in turning the 
scientific attention of the people of the colony into a particular 
direction. The kind of work which the museums have done for 
natural science, we might expect that an observatory would do 
for astronomy. It is quite true that causes other than the one 
mentioned have contributed to the advancement of natural 
science ; a new country, and one whose flora and fauna are so 
peculiar as those of New Zealand, must always excite attention 
and have special charms for the naturalist. But have we not 
here also new star-fields to explore, and new constellations to 
examine ? 
It is really a very curious fact that this colony should have 
provided itself so well with museums, and that it should be with- 
out an efficient observatory. We of course expect to find both 
kinds of institution in the older countries of Europe. But, 
whatever may have been done for museums in newer countries, 
it is quite certain that in most of them observatories have not 
been forgotten. There are at least twelve in the United States, 
there is at least one in Canada, there is one at the Cape of 
Good Hope, one at Sydney, one at Melbourne, and one at Ade- 
laide. Thus it appears that New Zealand is the only considerable 
British colony without an observatory. And these colonial ob- 
servatories were established in the early days of their respective 
colonies, and they have all done signal service to the cause of 
astronomy. That at the Cape of Good Hope was founded in 
the year 1820, and it was from observations made there in 1832 
and 1833 that the distance of Centauri, the nearest of the few stars 
whose distances have been even roughly ascertained, was deter- 
mined. It was to the Cape of Good Hope that Sir John Her- 
schel went in 1835, for the purpose of observing the southern 
nebule ; and it was whilst there that he closely observed the 
curious changes which took place in Halley’s comet after it had 
passed perihelion, and after it had become invisible in the north. 
The Sydney observatory sprang out of one which was originally 
founded at Paramatta, in 1821, by Sir Thomas Brisbane, who 
was at that time Governor of New South Wales. He furnished 
it with excellent instruments, and “in the same noble spirit of 
disinterested liberality he employed,at his own expense, two quali- 
fied assistants to aid him in his astronomical labours.”* From ob- 
servations made here, two catalogues, each containing several thou- 
sands of stars, were published. It was here also that Riimker, one 
of the assistants above alluded to, observed the return of Enke’s 
comet, in 1822; this was the first return of the comet after it 
* Grant’ History of Physical Astronomy. 
} 
| 
: 
_<) =e 
