Ill 



India has recently been selected as the site for the Viceroy's official 

 residence. 



The observations were continued from 1841 to 1846, though their 

 maintenance had been occasionally menaced with interruption. This 

 is referred to more than once by Boileau in the correspondence 

 which he maintained, during the earlier years of his work at Simla, 

 with Dr. Humphrey Lloyd. Under date 15th September, 1842, he 

 writes : — 



" We have now in Simla all our Chiefs, viz., Lord Ellenborough, the 

 Governor of the N.W. Provinces, and the Commander-in-Chief. 

 The Governor- General has not yet been to see my works, but he has 

 expressed himself in such terms respecting the Observatory that if it 

 is left to his Lordship's pleasure, the continuance of its observations 

 will be short indeed. He calls the establishment of the Company's 

 corresponding stations an English (or rather a Home) job ; and I 

 have not the least doubt that both himself and the Government of 

 India at Calcutta are doing all they can with the Court of Directors 



to procure the abolition of the Indian Observatories 



Government have twice applied to me to know how long my " experi- 

 ments " and "the Magnetic Survey" are to continue, and I have 

 both times replied that the series of corresponding observations upon 

 which I was engaged could not terminate until the 30th June, 1844, 

 at midnight" 



18th December, 1842; "We have got rid of all our great people, 

 but my Lord Ellenborough has bid me attend his grand doings at 

 Ferozpore on Christmas Day, whither accordingly I am bound on the 

 21st. This will cause a delay of three days in our opening the New 

 Year, but there is no help for it. The return of our armies from 

 Cabul promises a lasting peace to India, and I hope will also extend, 

 almost indefinitely, the existence of the Observatory." 



17th October, 1842 : " I see by the paper that H.M.'s Observatories 

 are to be continued for three years, and if any good is to come out of 

 our work, ours must be so too ; though the Governor- General told me 

 a few days ago that I must not reckon upon more than one year more 

 at Simla. Since then the news of our victories and the re-establish- 

 ment of British, supremacy in Afghanistan has come in, and a few 

 days since the accounts of peace with China, so that the mollia 

 tempora fandi have arrived, and if you desire our co-operation for a 

 further period, this is the time to ask for it. The peace saves our 

 Government at least one and a half millions a year. The extra 

 expense of four (three?) observatories is about £3,000 sterling per 

 annum only. Lord Auckland absurdly estimated it at £10,000 a year, 

 which was enough to frighten the Court of Directors out of their 

 senses." 



The same correspondence shows that Major Boileau not only kept 



