Edmund Halley. 
[February, 
92 
for at an early date. Meantime we may briefly recapitulate 
what is generally known of the mdefatl ^ bl ® “flatting 
cosmographerto whom it is now proposed to eredt a htting 
a£r sari | 
ye.- of .6= »f»*l STst'";.“ 
the movements of the magnetic needle before he [eft St Pan 
School In 1673 his university career commenced at Queen s 
College Oxford where, at the age of twenty, he made care- 
1 observations of the spots on the sun, the first results of 
his study of solar physics, made during July and August, 
1676 being published in conjunction with those of Flamsteed. 
Young Halley’s first ambitious scheme was to make an 
accurate generad catalogue of the stars, and as Hevelius and 
Flamsteed were employed in cataloguing t e s ; ars 
Northern Hemisphere, interest was made with the then 
reigning monarch, Charles II. (who appears to have 1 been 
much interested with the ardent enthusiasm of the young 
astronomer), who permitted Halley to proceed, at his own 
Sme To the nearest available spot under the southern tro- 
nic viz. St. Helena, which small island had been retaken 
bv Sir Richard Munden from the Dutch in it>73> and re ' 
granted to the East India Company by a new charter, and 
f European garrison was raised for its defence under Captain 
Gregory Field. The educational state of the island in those 
days may be judged from the fadt that three of the few mem- 
bers of Council were unable to write, and could only affix 
their marks to the proceedings of the Board. The latitude 
and longitude of the island even were imperfeffily known, 
and the means of ascertaining the latter were so inaccurate 
on board ship that at least one ship r etu ™ ed to E ^ g ^, d 
with the intelligence that the island had disappeared alto- 
gether Halley’s journal or log-book of the voyage is still 
extant and what is now a matter of a fortnight s steaming 
ffi a Union Company or Donald Currie steamer was then a 
formidable voyage of two or more months (the Northumber- 
W under Real-Admiral Sir George Cockburn, leaving the 
Start on the 9th of August, reached St. Helena on the 15th 
of Odtober, 1815, with Napoleon on board), and we can 
imagine the enjoyment he must have felt during the tropical 
3s on the Atlantic, and the first indelible impressions 
