1847
"On Nov. 13th I circulated an Address, proposing to discontinue the use of the Zenith Tube, because it had been found by a long course of comparative trials that the Zenith Tube was not more accurate than the Mural Circle. The Address stated that 'This want of superior efficiency of the Zenith Tube (which, considered in reference to the expectations that had been formed of its accuracy, must be estimated as a positive failure) is probably due to two circumstances. One is, the use of a plumb-line; which appears to be affected with various ill-understood causes of unsteadiness. The other is, the insuperable difficulty of ventilating the room in which the instrument is mounted.'—On December 20th I circulated an Address, proposing a Transit Circle, with telescope of 8 inches aperture. The Address states as follows: 'The clear aperture of the Object-Glass of our Transit Instrument is very nearly 5 inches, that of our Mural Circle is very nearly 4 inches.'—I had been requested by the Master-General of Ordnance (I think) to examine Candidates for a Mastership in Woolwich Academy, and I was employed on it in February and March, in conjunction with Prof. Christie.—In January I applied to Lord Auckland for money-assistance to make an astronomical journey on the Continent, but he refused.—On Mar. 19th Sir James South addressed to the Admiralty a formal complaint against me for not observing with the astronomical instruments: on Mar. 31st I was triumphantly acquitted by the Admiralty.—In June I was requested by the Commissioners of Railways to act as President of a Commission on Iron Bridges (suggested by the fall of the bridge at Chester). Lord Auckland objected to it, and I was not sorry to be spared the trouble of it.—In December I was requested, and undertook to prepare the Astronomical part of the Scientific Manual for Naval Officers.—On Sept. 24th occurred a very remarkable Magnetic Storm, to which there had been nothing comparable before. Mr Glaisher had it observed by eye extremely well, and I printed and circulated a paper concerning it.—Hansen, stimulated by the Lunar Reductions, discovered two long inequalities in the motion of the Moon, produced by the action of Venus. In the Report to the Visitors this matter is thus referred to: 'In the last summer I had the pleasure of visiting Prof. Hansen at Gotha, and I was so fortunate as to exhibit to him the corrections of the elements from these Reductions, and strongly to call his attention to their certainty, the peculiarity of their fluctuations, and the necessity of seeking for some physical explanation. I have much pleasure in indulging in the thought, that it was mainly owing to this representation that Prof. Hansen undertook that quest, which has terminated in the discovery of his two new lunar inequalities, the most remarkable discovery, I think, in Physical Astronomy.'—In discussing points relating to the discovery of Neptune, I made an unfortunate blunder. In a paper hastily sent to the Athenaeum (Feb. 18th) I said that Arago's conduct had been indelicate. I perceived instantly that I had used a wrong expression, and by the very next post I sent an altered expression. This altered expression was not received in time, and the original expression was printed, to my great sorrow. I could not then apologize. But at what appeared to be the first opportunity, in December, I did apologize; and my apology was accepted. But I think that Arago was never again so cordial as before.—On July 4th Hebe was discovered. After this Iris and Flora. Now commenced that train of discoveries which has added more than 100 planets to the Solar System.—On Oct. 8th was an Annular Eclipse of the Sun, of which the limit of annularity passed near to Greenwich. To determine the exact place, I equipped observatories at Hayes, Lewisham South End, Lewisham Village, Blackwall, Stratford, Walthamstow, and Chingford. The weather was bad and no observation was obtained.—In the Royal Astronomical Society: In 1846, the dispute between the partisans of Adams and Le Verrier was so violent that no medal could be awarded to either. In 1847 I (with other Fellows of the Society) promoted a special Meeting for considering such a modification of the bye-laws that for this occasion only it might be permissible to give two medals. After two days' stormy discussion, it was rejected.—In the University of London: At a meeting in July, where the religious question was discussed, it was proposed to receive some testimonial from affiliated bodies, or to consider that or some other plan for introducing religious literature. As the propriety of this was doubtful, there was a general feeling for taking legal advice: and it was set aside solely on purpose to raise the question about legal consultation. That was negatived by vote: and I then claimed the consideration of the question which we had put aside for it. By the influence of H. Warburton, M.P., this was denied. I wrote a letter to be laid before the Meeting on July 28th, when I was necessarily absent, urging my claim: my letter was put aside. I determined never to sit with Warburton again: on Aug. 2nd I intimated to Lord Burlington my wish to retire, and on Aug. 29th he transmitted to the Home Secretary my resignation. He (Lord Burlington) fully expressed his opinion that my claim ought to have been allowed.—On June 9th, on the occasion of Prince Albert's state visit to Cambridge, knighthood was offered to me through his Secretary, Prof. Sedgwick, but I declined it.—In September, the Russian Order of St Stanislas was offered to me, Mr De Berg, the Secretary of Embassy, coming to Greenwich personally to announce it: but I was compelled by our Government Rules to decline it.—I invited Le Verrier to England, and escorted him to the Meeting of the British Association at Oxford in June.—As regards the Westminster Clock on the Parliamentary Building: in May I examined and reported on Dent's and Whitehurst's clock factories. Vulliamy was excessively angry with me. On May 31st a great Parliamentary Paper was prepared in return to an Order of the House of Lords for correspondence relating to the Clock.—With respect to the Saw Mills for Ship Timber: work was going on under the direction of Sylvester to Mar. 18th. It was, I believe, at that time, that the fire occurred in Chatham Dock Yard which burnt the whole of the saw-machinery. I was tired of my machinery: and, from the extending use of iron ships, the probable value of it was much diminished; and I made no effort to restore it."
Of private history: "In February I went to Derby to see Whitehurst's clock factory; and went on with my wife to Brampton near Chesterfield, where her mother was living.—From Apr. 1st to 5th I was at Playford.—On Holy Thursday, I walked the Parish Bounds (of Greenwich) with the Parish officers and others. From Apr. 19th to 24th I was at Birmingham (on a visit to Guest, my former pupil, and afterwards Master of Caius College) and its neighbourhood, with George Arthur Biddell.—From June 23rd to 28th I was at Oxford and Malvern: my sister was at Malvern, for water-cure: the meeting of the British Association was at Oxford and I escorted Le Verrier thither.—July 28th to 30th I was at Brampton.—From August 10th to September 18th I was engaged on an expedition to St Petersburg, chiefly with the object of inspecting the Pulkowa Observatory. I went by Hamburg to Altona, where I met Struve, and started with him in an open waggon for Lübeck, where we arrived on Aug. 14th. We proceeded by steamer to Cronstadt and Petersburg, and so to Pulkowa, where I lodged with O. Struve. I was here engaged till Sept. 4th, in the Observatory, in expeditions in the neighbourhood and at St Petersburg, and at dinner-parties, &c. I met Count Colloredo, Count Ouvaroff, Count Stroganoff, Lord Bloomfield (British Ambassador), and others. On Sept. 4th I went in a small steamer to Cronstadt, and then in the Vladimir to Swinemünde: we were then towed in a passage boat to Stettin, and I proceeded by railway to Berlin. On Sept. 9th I found Galle and saw the Observatory. On Sept. 10th I went to Potzdam and saw Humboldt. On the 12th I went to Hamburg and lodged with Schumacher: I here visited Repsold and Rümker. On Sept. 14th I embarked in the John Bull for London, and arrived there on the evening of the 18th: on the 16th it was blowing 'a whole gale,' reported to be the heaviest gale known for so many hours; 4 bullocks and 24 sheep were thrown overboard.—From Dec. 3rd to 8th I was at Cambridge, and from the 22nd to 31st at Playford."
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Here is a letter to his wife written from Birmingham, containing a note of the progress of the ironwork for the Menai Bridge:
EDGBASTON, BIRMINGHAM,
1847, Apr. 22.
Yesterday morning we started between 10 and 11 for Stourbridge, first to see some clay which is celebrated all over the world as the only clay which is fit to make pots for melting glass, &c. You know that in all these fiery regions, fire-clay is a thing of very great importance, as no furnace will stand if made of any ordinary bricks (and even with the fire-clay, the small furnaces are examined every week), but this Stourbridge clay is as superior to fire-clay as fire-clay is to common brick-earth. Then we went to Fosters' puddling and rolling works near Stourbridge. These are on a very large scale: of course much that we saw was a repetition of what we had seen before, but there were slitting mills, machines for rolling the puddled blooms instead of hammering them, &c., and we had the satisfaction of handling the puddling irons ourselves. Then we went to another work of the Fosters not far from Dudley, where part of the work of the Tube Bridge for the Menai is going on. The Fosters are, I believe, the largest iron masters in the country, and the two principal partners, the elder Mr Foster and his Nephew, accompanied us in all our inspections and steppings from one set of works to another. The length of Tube Bridge which they have in hand here is only 120 feet, about 1/4 of the whole length: and at present they are only busy on the bottom part of it: but it is a prodigious thing. I shall be anxious about it. Then we went to other works of the Fosters' at King's Wynford, where they have blast furnaces: and here after seeing all other usual things we saw the furnaces tapped. In this district the Fosters work the 10-yard coal in a way different from any body else: they work out the upper half of its thickness and then leave the ground to fall in: after a year or two this ground becomes so hard as to make a good safe roof, and then they work away the other half: thus they avoid much of the danger and difficulty of working the thick bed all at once. The ventilation of these mines scarcely ever requires fires, and then only what they call "lamps," those little fire-places which are used for giving light at night. (In the Northumberland and Durham pits, they constantly have immense roaring fires to make a draught.) Then we came home through Dudley.
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During his stay in Russia, there was a great desire manifested by the astronomers and scientific men of Russia that he should be presented to the Emperor. This would no doubt have taken place had not the movements of the Court and his own want of time prevented it. The following letter to the British Ambassador, Lord Bloomfield, relates to this matter:
PULKOWA, 1847, August 25th. Wednesday evening.