Sir David Gill. 
205 
Frederick Eichards, then Commander-in-chief at Simon's Bay, and in 
a way Gill's superior officer, to visit the place and see it for himself. 
This Sir Frederick Eichards did, and the result of his visit was that a 
company of Kroomen were appointed to keep the grounds in order. 
Within a few years the policies round the observatory became a 
veritable garden, a place where it was a delight to wander hither 
and thither. 
As regards the poor instrumental equipment of the observatory, 
Gill had greater difficulties and opposition to overcome before he got 
things anyway near what he wished. 
Failing, in the meantime, new instruments or such additional con- 
trivances as would make the old instruments more dependable, he set 
himself to examine and discover their defects. There is a tale told of 
Bessel that when one of his assistants complained of the imperfections 
of the meridian circle he was using, he answered that the true astronomer 
was the man who could make use of a cart-wheel after a thorough 
inquiry into its errors. It was a maxim of Gill's that it was possible 
to make any instrument almost perfect by diligently ascertaining all its 
sources and possibilities of error, but that the finest instrument in the 
hands of an indifferent observer was little better than the worst. This 
opinion was not simply a doctrine with him. He carried it into rigorous 
practice, and one of the reasons why he achieved such trustworthy and 
accordant results with the small 4-inch heliometer is that he spent 
months in measuring the runs of its screws, the divisions of its circles, 
ts action in varying states of atmospheric conditions, till at last he knew 
how and when and why it departed from the behaviour of an ideal 
instrument, perfect as regards screws and circles and bearings. 
In seeking to improve the instrumental equipment of his observatory, 
Gill found that one of his most worrying difficulties was the relation of 
the Cape Observatory to Greenwich. Through some understanding, or 
misunderstanding, the Admiralty insisted that all alterations or additions 
to instruments at the Cape should first have to be submitted to the 
Astronomer Eoyal at Greenwich. 
With all his magnificent qualities Airy, like most other great men, 
had the imperfections of his virtues in a marked degree. He was 
doggedly, unreasonably conservative, and especially so in his old age. 
When, therefore. Gill approached the Admiralty with such reasonable 
requests as that a new reversible transit circle was much needed, 
and that the 7-inch equatorial was in such a wobbly, defective state that 
as an instrument, "It is nearly useless for any kind of refined micro- 
metric work," and therefore must be replaced by a larger instrument, his 
application was at first set aside. Greenwich had a non-reversible transit 
circle, and what was good enough for Greenwich was good enough for 
