No. 57.— 1906.] 



PROCEEDINGS- 



27 



donation, purchase, and transcription. The Museum Library is 

 indispensable for purposes of indexing and illustrating its 

 collections, and to the student the general collection of books 

 and leading scientific and other periodicals received, offer invalu- 

 able facilities for study and research. 



Observatory for Colombo. 



I have next to refer to the need of an observatory for Colombo. 

 For many years past it has been a standing grievance on the part 

 of the ship captains calling at Colombo that they were not supplied 

 with sufficiently correct time signals to enable them to rectify 

 and rate their chronometers. The first project of establishing an 

 observatory for the purpose was mooted over twenty-five years 

 ago, when Mr. G. Wall's small but choice collection of astronomical 

 instruments was on the market. With the increase in the import- 

 ance of Colombo as a port of call, and in the speed of modern 

 steamers, this grievance has steadily increased, and it has voiced 

 itself persistently of late years. It is a remarkable fact that 

 Ceylon is about the only Colony where correct time is not supplied. 

 Observatories exist in India, Canada, Australia, Cape Colony, 

 Natal, New Zealand, Mauritius, Hong Kong, St. Helena, 

 Tasmania, West Indies, &c. , where there is no single port approach- 

 ing the importance of Colombo. Now that the Graving Dock is 

 completed, this want of accurate time is likely to affect the use 

 of our port seriously. Whenever a ship requires docking, her 

 captain will evidently prefer taking her to Bombay for instance, 

 whence he is certain to start with his chronometers properly set 

 and rated, rather than to Colombo, where these facilities cannot 

 be procured. The time received by telegraph from Madras is 

 irregular and unreliable, and useless for the purposes of navigation, 

 besides requiring the line to be cleared of messages for about 

 twenty minutes every day between 3.40 and 4 p.m. Would not the 

 value of the time lost to the Telegraph Department more than pay 

 for the whole Observatory in a year or two ? Apart from supplying 

 time to ships, the establishment of an Observatory in Colombo 

 will enable all the public clocks, those of the Telegraph and es- 

 pecially of the Railway Departments to be automatically regulated, 

 and will ensure their pointing always to the correct time of day. 

 We shall at last be spared the familiar but lamentable spectacle of 

 the Clock Tower differing by five and even ten minutes from the 

 Post Office clock, and both of them being incorrect. This state 

 of things is utterly out of keeping with the degree of civilization 

 to which we have attained. 



The prospects of an Observatory being established are unfortu- 

 tunately not much better at present apparently than when the 

 subject was mooted in the Legislative Council in June, 1903. 

 The matter has been included three times in the Estimates in three 

 different years, but only to be remorselessly cut out. The 

 question has been before the Ceyon Government ever since 1897. 

 Let us hope that it may be His Excellency Sir Henry Blake's 

 good fortune before he leaves us to see a Colombo Observatory 



