78 Account of the Founding of a 



worthy of itself. For some time past the Academy had not 

 failed to give expression to those views of the matter which 

 was incumbent upon it, and was engaged about the plan of a 

 new observatory. The Emperor, when, in 1831, he improved 

 the position of the Observatory of Dorpat, announced his inten- 

 tion to confer upon the Academy of Petersburg, the means of 

 making observations more in accordance with the present state 

 of the science ; and the height of Pulkowa was then indicated 

 as the most favourable spot for the site of an observatory, in the 

 neighbourhood of the metropolis. On the 26th of October 

 1833, government made a communication to S. E. M. d'Ouwa- 

 roff, Minister of Public Instruction, and President of the Aca- 

 demy, requesting him to transmit a plan for the observatory in 

 question. This request could immediately be complied with, 

 inasmuch as the Academy possessed a finished plan of M. Parrot's, 

 one of its members, together with an estimate of the expense of 

 the building, and a list of the instruments necessary for the 

 establishment, and their price. According to these data, the sum 

 necessary for the building amounted to upwards of L. 66,000 

 (1,600,000 francs), and that required for the instruments to 

 about L. 26,000 (630,000 francs). On the 28th of the same 

 month, the Emperor authorized the Academy to give orders for 

 the instruments, and put L. 20,000 at the disposal of the Mi- 

 nister of Public Instruction, that the building might begin in 

 the spring of 1834, on that site which the Academy had selected 

 as the most convenient. 



For the purpose of executing the enlightened views of the 

 Emperor, the minister appointed a commission from the mem- 

 bers of the Academy, viz. Winievski, Fuss, Parrot, and Struve, 

 over which Admiral Greig, who is an honorary member of the 

 Academy, was to preside. The commission assembled in the 

 month of November, and agreed to consider the previous labours 

 of the Academy in the matter to be merely of a preparatory 

 character. The object being to establish in the neighbourhood 

 of St Petersburg, an observatory which might prove a centre 

 to the astronomical labours carried on throughout the Russian 

 empire, the commission examined with the greatest care, what 

 was desiderated for an establishment considered in this point 

 of view, so that it might give directions for the construction of 



