servations. Finally, there exists at Madras a private observatory, belonging to Mr. Burton Powell.
The Cape of Good Hope was an astronomical station long before a permanent observatory was thought of. From 1751 to 1753 the celebrated Abbé do LaCaille prepared his catalogue of the stars of the southern heavens, at the same time that he measured a meridional arc, and that he determined with Lalande, who had been sent to Berlin, the parallax of the moon, by means of a series of simultaneous observations. The immense labors accomplished by La Caille, in his short abode at the Cape, are so much the more worthy of praise as he had to struggle against a climate unfavorable for observation, for in this latitude there are only two months when the days are calm and serene; during the rest of the year the weather is variable, or a violent south wind fills the air with dust, and deprives it of its transparency. In spite of these inconveniences, the Cape is from its geographical situation one of the best stations for the study of the southern heavens, without taking into the account that the necessities of navigation demand the maintenance of an observatory in these regions. But it was not till 1820 that the English Admiralty decided upon the foundation of an observatory at the Cape, which should be constructed upon the model of that of Greenwich. The first director was the Rev. Fearon Fallows, who began regular observations in 1829; but, soon left alone by the departure of his assistant, he was obliged to avail himself of the assistance of his wife, who observed with the mural circle, while he made use of the transit instrument. Fallows died in 1831, and was succeeded by Henderson, to whom Sir Thomas Maclear succeeded in 1834. Better provided with instruments and personnel than his predecessor, Mr. Maclear resumed the geodesic operations of La Caille, and measured anew, with the superior means at his command, a meridian arc more extended than the former. Among the other works of the establishment, noteworthy mention must be made of numerous cometic observations. Mr. Maclear resigned his office in 1870, and was replaced by a Greenwich astronomer, Mr. Stone. It should be mentioned here that, outside of the Royal Observatory, Sir John Herschel prepared, from 1833 to 1838, at the Cape of Good Hope, his celebrated catalogue of the nebulae and double stars of the southern heavens, by the aid of a telescope and an equatorial which he had brought with him.
Since the abode of La Caille at the Cape, no serious attempt had been made to add to our knowledge of the southern half of the heavens, when, in 1821, Sir Thomas Brisbane, then governor of the colony of New South Wales, resolved to supply the want at his own expense. He founded three observatories, one at Makerstown, where Mr. Allen Brown, who has since become the astronomer of the Rajah of Travancore, began a series of meteorological and magnetic observations, the two others at Brisbane and at Paramatta near Sydney. Of the
