Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/128

 106 HISTORY OF THE [1840-50 reports frequently arrived was the Cape, and that from two con- nections. First, Herschel had only recently returned from his expedition, in which he had set up his 20 -foot reflector for a survey of the southern heavens. The strong personal charm and influence his presence never failed to exert is apparent. In 1844, Maclear sent an account of the erection of a memorial obelisk : " Sir John Herschel, during his residence at the Cape, was President of the South African Literary and Scientific Institution. When he was about to leave the Colony, the members expressed a desire to present him with some token of remembrance ; and at a full meeting a few days before his departure, a gold medal was presented with the impress of the Institution on one side and a suitable inscription on the reverse. The feelings excited on that interesting occasion strongly evinced how much the members regretted the loss of the President, and their admiration of one whose talents place him so far above ordinary men, and whose private life was a pattern of every domestic virtue." Accordingly an obelisk was erected, on the site of his telescope, and various memorials were immured below. Herschel's work at the Cape was, as is well known, independent of the Cape Observatory. The reports of that Observatory cover at least three matters of interest. Henderson had returned from there in 1833. Maclear's confirmation and continuation of his parallax work has been mentioned elsewhere. Maclear was himself engaged for most of the period in a very laborious and punishing geodetical expedition in repetition of Lacaille's meridian arc. The matter was complicated by questions of local deviations of the vertical at the two ends, the arc beginning north of the Cape mountains and ending to the south of the Kamiesberg. At the latter the country was absolutely wild, unknown even to the natives, waterless and exposed. The work was courageously completed, but Maclear's health suffered severely. The third matter was the publication of the history of the foundation of the Observatory, and the first observations made by Fearon Fallows there. Here Airy's energy in reducing old observations came to aid. He discussed the material which Fallows had accumulated from 1829 to his death in 1831, and made it available, for what it was worth. India. Madras Observatory may also be mentioned as contri- buting to the flow of news ; here T. G. Taylor was at work until his death in 1848. Less familiar, and therefore perhaps more welcome, Trevandrum on the opposite coast. Caldecott was astronomer to the Maharajah of Travancore. Besides numerous observations of comets, Caldecott shows the true spirit in his observations of the solar eclipse of 1843 December. Having ascertained that the