18 
Proceedings of Boycd Society of EdinlurgJi. [dec. 5, 
whicli tlie Astronomical Institute of Edinburgh had parted with 
their Observatory to Government nearly thirty years previously. 
That is, declining to listen to the long time accredited Board of 
Visitors, he appointed autocratically a Committee of his own to 
come down from London, and examine and report on the case. 
That Committee accordingly arrived in July of 1876, examined at 
the Observatory, sat and discussed in Queen Street, and then 
reported for a series of financial improvements of a similar, though 
altered character to those of the Board of Visitors, because including 
a rebuilding of the Observatory in a modern manner and on a 
new site. 
But the Home Secretary thereupon declined to listen to his own 
Committee, and neglected all their recommendations, as well as those 
of the older Board of Visitors. 
The venerable Mr Duncan MDaren, then Senior M.P. for Edin- 
burgh, moved thereupon in Parliament to have the Committee’s 
Keport publicly printed, which was done in 1877. Still however 
nothing came of it until 1879, when on account of further repre- 
sentations by the same watchful guardian of Scottish interests, the 
Home Secretary found it expedient to send another of his Commit- 
tees to examine and report again. Confining itself however this time 
to the Equatorial, and without admitting the Astronomer to their 
Council, this Committee advised certain improvements, obtained a 
grant for executing them, and handed it over to the OflS.ce of 
Works, where it is believed either to remain still, or to have lapsed 
to the Treasury after doing little or nothing at the instrument. 
This result however is perhaps not very much to be regretted, 
because the sum was not only absurdly insufficient to go through 
with all that was, and still more is, required for eflSciency in the 
mere inorganic instrument, — but the previously admitted starvation 
of the Observatory in all its oflSces and its various means of doing 
good after its kind, was left absolutely untouched, and prevails to a 
degree of intensity, that were it on a larger scale, or nearer London, 
might, in its crying injustice, excite severe public animadversion, 
with questions as to the propriety of Home Kule being the only way 
to obtain justice for Scotland. 
To compare the case in round numbers with another Koyal 
Observatory nearer London headquarters, viz., that at Greenwich, 
