The only instrument then mounted at the Observatory
was the Transit. I had no Assistant whatever.--A Mr Galbraith of
Edinburgh had questioned something in one of my Papers about the
Figure of the Earth. I drew up a rather formal answer to it: Whewell
saw my draft and drew up a much more pithy one, which I adopted and
sent to the Philosophical Magazine.--For comparing our clocks at the
upper and lower stations of Dolcoath we had borrowed from the Royal
Observatory, Greenwich, six good pocket chronometers: they were still
in the care of Mr Sheepshanks. I arranged with him that they should be
sent backwards and forwards a few times for determining the longitude
of Cambridge Observatory. This was done on Oct. 21st, 22nd, 23rd: the
result was 23 deg.54, and this has been used to the present time
(1853). It evinced an error in the Trigonometrical Survey, the origin
of which was found, I think, afterwards (Dr Pearson in a letter of
Dec. 17th spoke of the mistake of a may-pole for a signal-staff). I
drew up a Paper on this, and gave it to the Cambridge Philosophical
Society on Nov. 24th. (My only academical Paper this year.)--I had
several letters from Dr Young, partly supplying me with calculations
that I wanted, partly on reform or extension of the Nautical Almanac
(which Dr Young resisted as much as possible).
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