40 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
As to the work performed by the organising committee in 
the brief interval which now remained, I do not care to say 
much. That there were shortcomings cannot be denied. Con- 
tradictory directions were sent by post and telegraph.* Eminent 
men of science, learned Fellows of colleges, and disinterested 
volunteers in the cause of astronomy, received telegrams so 
curt, and even impertinent in tone, as to have justified their 
withdrawing wholly from the work they had volunteered to do.f 
But then it must be remembered that the work of months was 
being crowded into weeks, and that a large part of the blame 
should in justice be removed from the inferior officers who had 
to superintend this part of the work, since it was certainly not 
their fault that the time at their disposal was so limited. 
To sum up this more painful part of my subject, there was 
complete mismanagement from beginning to end. To whom 
we should ascribe the blame of the fiasco (for let the success of 
the expeditions themselves be what it may, the preparations 
were a complete fiasco') it would be difficult to say. We can- 
not rightly place the blame on the shoulders of the Astronomer 
Boyal, whose official duties at Greenwich would have justified 
him in leaving the matter wholly to others. And again, the 
names of many in the committee — as General Sabine, Messrs. 
Lassell and De la Bue, Colonel Strange, Dr. Huggins, and so 
on— are guarantees of an earnest regard for scientific interests. 
And as for the rank and file of the committee, if I may be 
permitted the expression, it is well known that the matter was 
taken completely out of their hands. But somewhere there 
corona with the polariscope. In order to do this the more effectually, 
he had intended, if the expeditions were decided on, to devote a large por- 
tion of the long vacation to making himself practically familiar with polari- 
scopic analysis. He received definite intimation that his services would he 
accepted on Nov. 22 ; that is, in the heart of the October term (the busiest 
term of all at Cambridge), when his whole time was taken up with lectures 
and the work of preparing questionists for the tripos of the present month. 
It is not too much to say that the actual efficiency of the observing 
parties has been reduced by much more than one-half, through the delay 
which resulted from the u weakly constitution of the committee ” appointed 
to manage matters. 
* I was myself present when Mr. Brothers, of Manchester, received within 
a few minutes three contradictory sets of instructions, one by post and two 
by telegraph. 
t In one instance, a Fellow of a college received a telegram so remarkable 
in tone, from a member of the organising committee, as to be obliged to 
intimate that even the curtness of telegram-English would not’justify the 
rudeness he had been subjected to. It is only right to add, however, that 
the courtesy of the honorary secretary of the committee was favourably com- 
mented upon by all who received communications from him. 
