He then enquired if I could
visit him in the winter vacation. I accordingly went from Bury, and
was received by him at his house in Blackman Street for a week or more
with great kindness. He introduced me to Sir Humphrey Davy and many
other London savans, and shewed me many London sights and the
Greenwich Observatory. I also had a little practice with his own
instruments. He was then on intimate terms with Mr Herschel
(afterwards Sir John Herschel), then living in London, who came
occasionally to observe double stars. This was the first time that I
saw practical astronomy. It seems that I borrowed his mountain
barometer. In the Lent term I wrote to him regarding the deduction of
the parallax of Mars, from a comparison of the relative positions of
Mars and 46 Leonis, as observed by him and by Rumker at Paramatta. My
working is on loose papers. I see that I have worked out perfectly the
interpolations, the effects of uncertainty of longitude, &c., but I do
not see whether I have a final result.
"In Jan. 1824, at Playford, I was working on the effects of separating
the two lenses of an object-glass, and on the kind of eye-piece which
would be necessary: also on spherical aberrations and Saturn's
figure.
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