, asking if I could see Cropley in
London, where he was imprisoned for contempt of Chancery. I attended
the meeting of the Board of Longitude on Feb. 1st, and afterwards
visited Cropley in the Fleet Prison. He died there, some time
later. It was by the sale of his effects under execution that my
father's debt was paid.

"On Feb. 15th I communicated to the Royal Society a Paper on the
correction of the Solar Tables from South's observations. I believe
that I had alluded to this at the February meeting of the Board of
Longitude, and that in consequence Mr Pond, the Astronomer Royal, had
been requested to prepare the errors of the Sun's place from the
Greenwich observations: which were supplied some months later. With
the exception of South's Solar Errors, and some investigations about
dipping-needles, I do not find anything going on but matters connected
with my approaching lectures. There are bridges, trusses, and other
mechanical matters, theoretical and practical, without end. Several
tradesmen in Cambridge and London were well employed. On Feb. 13th I
have a letter from Cubitt about groins: I remember studying those of
the Custom-house and other places. On Feb. 20th my Syllabus of
Lectures was finished: this in subsequent years was greatly
improved. I applied to the Royal Society for the loan of Huyghens's
object-glass, but they declined to lend it. About this time I find
observations of the spectrum of Sirius.

"There had been no lectures on Experimental Philosophy (Mechanics,
Hydrostatics, Optics) for many years. The University in general, I
believe, looked with great satisfaction to my vigorous beginning:
still there was considerable difficulty about it. There was no
understood term for the Lectures: no understood hour of the day: no
understood lecture room. I began this year in the Lent Term, but in
all subsequent years I took the Easter Term, mainly for the chance of
sunlight for the optical experiments, which I soon made important. I
could get no room but a private or retiring room (not a regular
lecture room) in the buildings at the old Botanic Garden: in following
years I had the room under the University Library. The Lectures
commenced on some day in February 1827: I think that the number who
attended them was about 64. I remember very well that the matter which
I had prepared as an Introductory Lecture did not last above half the
time that I had expected, but I managed very well to fill up the
hour. On an