trument and
the building to contain it." The following passage is quoted from the
Address of the Astronomer Royal to the Board of Visitors at the
Special Meeting of Nov. 10th, 1843: "The most important object in the
institution and maintenance of the Royal Observatory has always been
the Observations of the Moon. In this term I include the determination
of the places of fixed stars which are necessary for ascertaining the
instrumental errors applicable to the instrumental observations of the
Moon. These, as regards the objects of the institution, were merely
auxiliaries: the history of the circumstances which led the Government
of the day to supply the funds for the construction of the Observatory
shews that, but for the demands of accurate Lunar Determinations as
aids to navigation, the erection of a National Observatory would never
have been thought of. And this object has been steadily kept in view
when others (necessary as fundamental auxiliaries) were passed
by. Thus, during the latter part of Bradley's time, and Bliss's time
(which two periods are the least efficient in the modern history of
the Observatory), and during the latter part of Maskelyne's presidency
(when, for years together, there is scarcely a single observation of
the declination of a star), the Observations of the Moon were kept up
with the utmost regularity. And the effect of this regularity, as
regards its peculiar object, has been most honourable to the
institution. The existing Theories and Tables of the Moon are founded
entirely upon the Greenwich Observations; the Observatory of Greenwich
has been looked to as that from which alone adequate observations can
be expected, and from which they will not be expected in vain: and it
is not perhaps venturing too much to predict that, unless some gross
dereliction of duty by the managers of the Observatory should occur,
the Lunar Tables will always be founded on Greenwich Observations.
With this impression it has long been to me a matter of
consideration whether means should not be taken for rendering the
series of Observations of the Moon more complete than it can be made
by the means at present recognized in our observatories."--In
illustration of the foregoing remarks, the original inscription still
remaining on the outside of the wall of the Octagon Room of the
Observatory may be quoted. It runs thus: 'Carolus II's Rex Optimus
Astronomiae et Nauticae Artis Patronus Maximus Speculam hanc in
utriusq