9 
society of the great traveller Humboldt, the magnetieal mathe- 
matician Gauss, and the astronomical analyst Hansen. 
Returning to Geneva in 1839, the venerable Alfred Gautier retired, 
and Plantamour, able now to look on astronomy from every side, 
or as a Switzer of each and every diversely tongued canton, was 
installed as director of the observatory, with powers to choose and 
direct accordingly. Wherefore thus he proceeded. Hot with any 
of the two or three great observatories of the three or four gigantic 
countries, powerful governments, and populous nations around him, 
would he contend in their ancient and still prescriptive work of 
procuring new expressions for the oldest fundamentals of the grand 
classic astronomy of sun, moon, and principal planets ; no fresh and 
always minutely differing values would he attempt for the exact 
quantities of precession and nutation, for the aberration of light, for 
refraction, and sun-distance ; on each of which inquiries such 
myriads of pounds sterling have been, and still are, being spent, 
and libraries of books written in the great centres of civilisation ; 
but, while fully appreciating both the grandeur and difficulty of 
those problems as much as any of the savants working at them, he 
chose more especially “ the orbits of Comets ” as the future distinc- 
tive subject of his observatory labours. 
Comets, however, will not always come just when they are 
wanted ; and so, for a time, we find the disciple of the German 
Bessel, remembering anew the Gallic Arago, and to such purpose, 
that the very earliest of his published memoirs in his new director- 
ship, was on “ Atmospheric Electricity.” Then came two years 
observations of terrestrial magnetism. And next, duly considering 
the wants of those of his countrymen engaged in the staple industry 
of Geneva, watch-making, he organised a department in the obser- 
vatory where watches and chronometers sent in by the local makers 
are submitted to a variety of scientific tests, the results published, 
and prizes awarded for the best time-keepers ; with the happiest 
effects too in promoting improvements in that most delicate branch 
of all the mechanical arts. 
But in 1843, Plantamour’s own faithful waiting was at length 
rewarded by the apparition of one of the most splendid, and in 
every way remarkable, comets of modern times. Seen first in broad 
daylight close to the sun, and afterwards hurrying away into the 
