he office (though not residing for some time). Oct 7th
is the date of my Official Instructions.

"I had made it a condition of accepting the office that the then First
Assistant should be removed, and accordingly I had the charge of
seeking another. I determined to have a man who had taken a
respectable Cambridge degree. I made enquiry first of Mr Bowstead
(brother to the bishop) and Mr Steventon: at length, consulting Mr
Hopkins (a well-known private tutor at Cambridge), he recommended to
me Mr Robert Main, of Queens' College, with whom I corresponded in the
month (principally) of August, and whom on August 30th I nominated to
the Admiralty. On Oct. 21st F.W. Simms, one of the Assistants (who
apparently had hoped for the office of First Assistant, for which he
was quite incompetent) resigned; and on Dec. 4th I appointed in his
place Mr James Glaisher, who had been at Cambridge from the beginning
of 1833, and on Dec. 10th the Admiralty approved.

"During this quarter of a year I was residing at Cambridge
Observatory, visiting Greenwich once a week (at least for some time),
the immediate superintendence of the Observatory being placed with Mr
Main. I was however engaged in reforming the system of the Greenwich
Observatory, and prepared and printed 30 skeleton forms for reductions
of observations and other business. On Dec. 14th I resigned my
Professorship to the Vice-Chancellor. But I continued the reduction of
the observations, so that not a single figure was left to my
successor: the last observations were those of Halley's Comet. The
Preface to my 1835 Cambridge Observations is dated Aug. 22nd, 1836.

"In regard to the Northumberland Telescope, I had for some time been
speculating on plans of mounting and enclosing the instrument, and had
corresponded with Simms, A. Biddell, Cubitt, and others on the
subject. On Apr. 24th Tulley the younger was endeavouring to adjust
the object-glass. On May 31st I plainly asked the Duke of
Northumberland whether he would defray the expense of the mounting and
building. On June 4th he assented, and money was placed at a banker's
to my order. I then proceeded in earnest: in the autumn the building
was erected, and the dome was covered before the depth of winter. I
continued in 1836 to superintend the mounting of the instrument.

"In regard to the Planetary Reductions: to July 11th J. Glaisher had
been employed 27 weeks, and from July 11th to Jan. 16th, 1836, 25
weeks. Mr Spring Ric