Admiralty, for it is under this department that Greenwich Observatory
is placed, the Astronomer Royal employed a large force of computers
to deal with the work. BY his energy and admirable organisation he
managed to reduce an extremely valuable series of planetary
observations, and to publish the results, which have been of the
greatest importance to astronomical investigation.

The Astronomer Royal was a capable, practical engineer as well as an
optician, and he presently occupied himself by designing astronomical
instruments of improved pattern, which should replace the antiquated
instruments he found in the observatory. In the course of years the
entire equipment underwent a total transformation. He ordered a
great meridian circle, every part of which may be said to have been
formed from his own designs. He also designed the mounting for a
fine equatorial telescope worked by a driving clock, which he had
himself invented. Gradually the establishment at Greenwich waxed
great under his incessant care. It was the custom for the
observatory to be inspected every year by a board of visitors, whose
chairman was the President of the Royal Society. At each annual
visitation, held on the first Saturday in June, the visitors received
a report from the Astronomer Royal, in which he set forth the
business which had been accomplished during the past year. It was on
these occasions that applications were made to the Admiralty, either
for new instruments or for developing the work of the observatory in
some other way. After the more official business of the inspection
was over, the observatory was thrown open to visitors, and hundreds
of people enjoyed on that day the privilege of seeing the national
observatory. These annual gatherings are happily still continued,
and the first Saturday in June is known to be the occasion of one of
the most interesting reunions of scientific men which takes place in