"We have begun to send out letters, but as it is 'out of season' I am afraid everybody will be at the watering-places.
THE GREENWICH OBSERVATORY. "The observatory was founded by Charles II. The king that 'never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one' was yet sagacious enough to start an institution which has grown to be a thing of might, and this, too, of his own will, and not from the influence of courtiers. One of the hospital buildings of Greenwich, then called the 'House of Delights,' was the residence of Henrietta Maria, and the young prince probably played on the little hill now the site of the observatory.
"But Charles, though he started an observatory, did not know very well what was needed. The first building consisted of a large, octagonal room, with windows all around; it was considered sufficiently firm without any foundation, and sufficiently open to the heavens with no opening higher than windows. This room is now used as a place of deposit for instruments, and busts and portraits of eminent men, and also as the dancing-hall for the director's family.
"Under Mr. Airy's [Footnote: The late Sir George Airy.] direction, the walls of the observing-room have become pages of its history. The transit instruments used by Halley, Bradley, and Pond hang side by side; the zenith sector with which Bradley discovered the 'aberration of light,' now moving rustily on its arc, is the ornament of another room; while the shelves of the computing-room are filled with volumes of unpublished observations of Flamstead and others.
"The observatory stands in Greenwich Park, the prettiest park I have yet seen; being a group of small hills. They point out oaks said to belong to Elizabeth's time—noble oaks of any time. The observatory is one hundred and fifty feet above the sea level. The view from it is, of course, beautiful. On the north the river, the little Thames, big with its fleet, is winding around the Isle of Dogs; on the left London, always overhung with a cloud of smoke, through which St. Paul's and the Houses of Parliament peep.
"Mr. Airy was exceedingly kind to me, and seemed to take great interest in showing me around. He appeared to be much gratified by my interest in the history of the observatory. He is naturally a despot, and his position increases this tendency. Sitting in his chair, the zero-point of longitude for the world, he commands not only the little knot of observers and computers around him, but when he says to London, 'It is one o'clock,' London adopts that time, and her ships start for their voyages around the globe, and continue to count their time from that moment, wherever the English flag is borne.
"It is singular what a quiet motive-power Science is, the breath of a nation's progress.
"Mr. Airy is not favorable to the multiplication of observatories. He predicted the failure of that at Albany. He says that he would gladly destroy one-half of the meridian instruments of the world, by way of reform. I told him that my reform movement would be to bring together the astronomers who had no instruments and the instruments which had no astronomers.
"Mr. Airy is exceedingly systematic. In leading me by narrow passages and up steep staircases, from one room to another of the irregular collection of rooms, he was continually cautioning me about my footsteps, and in one place he seemed to have a kind of formula: 'Three steps at this place, ten at this, eleven at this, and three again.' So, in descending a ladder to the birthplace of the galvanic currents, he said, 'Turn your back to the stairs, step down with the right foot, take hold with the right hand; reverse the operation in ascending; do not, on coming out, turn around at once, but step backwards one step first.'
"Near the throne of the astronomical autocrat is another proof of his system, in a case of portfolios. These contain the daily bills, letters, and papers, as they come in and are answered in order. When a portfolio is full, the papers are removed and are sewed together. Each year's accumulation is bound, and the bound volumes of Mr. Airy's time nearly cover one side of his private room.