14 
President’s Address. 
be some supervision, which, without interfering with the 
individual exertions of the gentlemen in charge of the 
observatories should be able to report officially to the Govern- 
ment as to the usefulness of the work which was being done, 
the manner in which it was executed, and the adequacy of 
the means for the purpose. With this object the Board of 
Visitors to the Observatories, was appointed in 1860, in 
accordance with a vote of the Legislative Assembly. 
Since that period, the representations of the Government 
Astronomer, backed by the recommendations of the 
Board of Visitors, have been promptly attended to, and 
Melbourne now possesses an Astronomical Observatory 
which, in situation, in instrumental appliances, and in 
personal staff, is second only to the great metropolitan 
observatories of Europe, and in many points may be com- 
pared favourably with them. With one exception, every 
recommendation of the Committee of the Philosophical 
Institute, 1857 (or Royal Society as it is now called), 
has been carried out on a larger scale, and in a more com- 
plete manner, than the Committee then ventured even to 
hope for. 
The magnetic survey of the Colony is now just completed, 
and funds have already been transmitted to England for print- 
ing the results of that survey, and also the five years’ series of 
magnetical and meteorological observations. The Astro- 
nomical Observatory has already acquired ci'edit for itself in 
Europe by the valuable series of observations of Mars which 
it contributed, and which, in conjunction with those at 
Greenwich, occupy the most prominent place in the deter- 
mination of the increased value which must be assigned to 
the solar parallax ; and it is now preparing to take its part, in 
conjunction with the observatories at Madras and the Cape 
of Good Hope, in a systematic cataloguing of the southern 
stars, which is about to be carried on under the auspices of 
the Royal Astronomical Society. 
The one exception alluded to, is the recommendation for 
the establishment of a great reflector, and there is every 
ground for confidence that this will not long form an 
exception. 
Whatever reasons could be assigned for it in 1856, still 
weightier reasons exist now. From the expei’ience acquired 
in England during that time, the construction of a telescope 
of the kind required a reflector of four feet aperture, has 
