VIZAGAPATAM.
the residence of M.R.Ry. A. V. Jagga Rao (see p. 220), contains the Godé Venkata Jagga Rao observatory. This was established in 1841 by the gentleman whose name it bears who (p. 220) had imbibed a taste for astronomy from his tutor, the then Government Astronomer. He erected the existing flagstatff on the Dolphin's Nose, the flag on which used to be hauled down precisely at 9 A.M. to set the time for the station. After his death his daughter, Mrs. A. V. Narasinga Rao, and her husband added largely to the equipment of the observatory and the institution began the contribution to the Bengal and Government of India Meteorological departments of the series of observations which is still continued. In 1884 Mrs. Narasinga Rao proposed to endow the institution with a fund of three lakhs and hand it over to trustees under the control of the Madras Government. Government did not find themselves able to accept the position, but eventually, in 1895, the Government of India 1[1] vested the observatory, the Dolphin's Nose flagstaff and the three lakhs in the Madras Treasurer of Charitable Endowments and the immediate management of the institution in a committee comprising the Collector for the time being, the Meteorological Reporters to the Governments of Madras and Bengal, the Government Astronomer and others. Subsequently M.R.Ry. A. V. Jagga Rao regained control of the observatory and its endowment. The instruments there include a 6-inch equatorial, a 3- inch transit instrument, a sidereal clock and a photographic telescope.
Facing Dábá Gardens is the old parade-ground, now used by the police. The lines of the two infantry regiments which used to be stationed in Vizagapatam were near this, on the other side of the road to Waltair. With Rs. 10,000 presented by the late Mahárája Sir Gajapati Rao and after his death by his widow, the site of these has recently been cleared and levelled, and the hamlet growing up on it is called Maháránipéta. A road leads from it across the slopes of the sand-hill to the road along the shore.
Near this hamlet is Súrya Bágh, the residence of the Ráni of Wadhwán (p. 221), just north of which, at the junction of the roads to Waltair and to Bimlipatam stands the cemetery usually called 'the Regimental Lines cemetery,' or, from the inscription over its gateway, the Mors janna vitie cemetery. This was consecrated by Bishop Spencer in 1847. The tombs in it date from 1819 to 1883, and include those of two Collectors of the
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- ↑ 1 See the fuller account of the matter in the Report on the observatory for 1895.
