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Transactions of tJie Boyal Society oj South Africa. 
the Cape. It is strange that a mind so acute as Airy's did not perceive, 
as Gill did, that a new day was dawning in astronomical progress. 
From the very first Gill entered distinctly and unmistakably into the 
social life of the land. No doubt his comparative wealth enabled him 
to do this with an easier mind, and a more lavish hand, than any of his 
predecessors. But his own striking personality and the grace and 
dignity of his wife, were the greatest factors in the position he took, 
and held, from the beginning of his career in South Africa. 
He was the honoured friend of all the Governors of his day as well 
as of the leading statesmen and churchmen. Notable visitors to South 
Africa rarely left the country without a visit to the observatory. As 
already indicated, his hospitality was unbounded, and it had this striking 
merit — that it included within its kindly harbour the student and the 
savant, the unknown and the celebrated. Underneath his roof might 
be found at one and the same time a scientist of world-wide fame and 
some young student jnst entering on his career, an instrument-maker 
with a European reputation and a humble surveyor whose desire it was 
to have but ten minutes' conversation with the head of the South African 
Geodetic Survey. 
It is of more than passing interest for us in this Society to remember 
that one of the first things Gill did on his arrival in this land was to 
associate himself most intimately with the aims and labours of the old 
Philosophical Society. This he did, in the first instance, at the request 
of Sir Bartle Frere, but afterwards because of his own personal interest 
in everything that made for the intellectual well-being of his fellow- 
citizens. He was for many years president of the Society, and his papers 
and addresses make good and profitable reading. 
It would take too long to tell the whole story of how, slowly but 
surely, Gill built up a new^ observatory, how he raised it to the very first 
rank among such institutions, how he gave to it its present wide outlook, 
how he equipped it so that it might deal efficiently with most of the 
activities that the new astronomy had created. We can only briefly refer 
to the salient facts in the revolution which Gill, in twenty-seven years of 
unremitting thought and toil, accomplished. 
"When Gill retired in 1907 the observatory had changed out of all 
knowing both with regard to its equipment, the range of its activities, and 
the character and quality of its work. Scattered over the well-kept 
grounds were nearly a dozen separate buildings almost all built during 
his tenure of office. These housed the 6-inch refractor, the 7- inch helio- 
meter, the astrographic telescope, the reversible transit circle, the 3-foot 
altazimuth, the Zenith telescope, and the various measuring machines or 
other apparatus connected with the great star map. 
In 1879 the whole staff of the observatory consisted of eight persons. 
