XVI 



year Stone was appointed Lis successor. The thirty-six years of 

 Maclear's directorate had been fruitful in many ways. An arc of 

 meridian had been measured, a splendid series of extra-meridian 

 observations secured, and the greater part of all this work had been 

 reduced and published. Maclear's inborn tastes had drawn him from 

 a lucrative profession and forced him to become an astronomer. He 

 was by nature of an enthusiastic disposition and an ardent observer. 

 The clear skies at the Cape offered him ample opportunity to accu- 

 mulate observations, but he was never provided with a staif sufficient 

 to overtake arrears of reduction. He had therefore to choose between 

 limiting the number of observations or leaving many of them unre- 

 duced and unpublished whilst he secured as many more as he could. 

 He chose the latter alternative, and thus of the long series of meri- 

 dian observations made during the thirty-six years of his directorate 

 nothing had been published except the meridian observations of 1834 

 and such star places as were required for comet comparison stars, 

 moon culminators, &c. 



Stone had for a long time recognised the special importance of 

 forming an accurate and extensive catalogue of southern sta,rs, and 

 had even endeavoured to persuade Airy to extend the range of mag- 

 nitude of stars observed at Greenwich, and to construct a catalogue 

 of northern stars complete to some such order of magnitude as the 

 7th. In his introduction to the ' Cape Observations of 1871, 1872, 

 and 1873 ' Stone states : " The chief inducement which led me 

 to accept the appointment was the opportunity which the position 

 afforded for the formation of a general catalogue of southern stars 

 to about the 7th magnitude." It was therefore with enthusiasm 

 and high resolve to construct such a catalogue that Stone betook him- 

 self to the Cape. But his official instructions were imperative on 

 one point, viz., that he was to render the large number of meridian 

 observations accumulated by Maclear available for the use of astro- 

 nomers with as little delay as possible. 



Such an instruction was one which would have discouraged most 

 men. 



" I found myself," says Stone,* " with a very limited staff, unexpectedly 

 confronted with the result of thirty-six years of miscellaneous observing in 

 all states of reduction, nothing completed, and nothing which could be 

 brought forward for publication and use without a very considerable 

 expenditure of time and skilled labour. I fear the course pursued of con- 

 tinuous miscellaneous observing without reduction has not tended to the 

 advancement of accurate astronomy to any extent proportional to the 

 labour expended upon the work, and still required to be expended upon 

 it, before the results can be rendered useful. Such observing is rarely 

 conducted in a way to facilitate the subsequent reductions or to economise 



* Introduction to the ' Cape Catalogue ' for 1860. 



