surprising that he died comparatively early (1762) and that his death was generally attributed to overwork.
223. The monotony of Lacaille's outward life was broken by the scientific expedition to the Cape of Good Hope (1750–1754) organised by the Academy of Sciences and placed under his direction.
The most striking piece of work undertaken during this expedition was a systematic survey of the southern skies, in the course of which more than 10,000 stars were observed.
These observations, together with a carefully executed catalogue of nearly 2,000 of the stars[1] and a star-map, were published posthumously in 1763 under the title Coelum Australe Stelliferum, and entirely superseded Halley's much smaller and less accurate catalogue (§ 199). Lacaille found it necessary to make 14 new constellations (some of which have since been generally abandoned), and to restore to their original places the stars which the loyal Halley had made into King Charles's Oak. Incidentally Lacaille observed and described 42 nebulae, nebulous stars, and star-clusters, objects the systematic study of which was one of Herschel's great achievements (chapter xii., §§ 259–261).
He made a large number of pendulum experiments, at Mauritius as well as at the Cape, with the usual object of determining in a new part of the world the acceleration due to gravity, and measured an arc of the meridian extending over rather more than a degree. He made also careful observations of the positions of Mars and Venus, in order that from comparison of them with simultaneous observations in northern latitudes he might get the parallax of the sun (chapter viii., § 161). These observations of Mars compared with some made in Europe by Bradley and others, and a similar treatment of Venus, both pointed to a solar parallax slightly in excess of 10", a result less accurate than Cassini's (chapter viii., § 161), though obtained by more reliable processes.
A large number of observations of the moon, of which
- ↑ The remaining 8,000 stars were not "reduced" by Lacaille. The whole number were first published in the "reduced" form by the British Association in 1845.
