Towards the end of each year I procured a pocket-book
for the following year with a space for every day, and carefully
examining all the sources of elements of observations, and determining
the observations to be made every day, I inserted them in the
pocket-book. This system gave wonderful steadiness to the plan of
observations for the next year. The system has been maintained in
great perfection at the Observatory of Greenwich. (The first of these
pocket-books which Prof. Adams has found is that for 1833.) Printed
skeleton forms were introduced for all calculations from 1828. In the
Greenwich Observatory Library there is a collection, I believe
complete, of printed papers commencing with my manifesto, and
containing all Syndicate Reports except for 1833 (when perhaps there
was none). It seems from these that my first written Report on
Observations, &c., was on May 30th, 1834. The first Syndicate Report
is on May 25th, 1829."
* * * * *
A few remarks on Airy's private life and friends during his residence
at Cambridge Observatory may be here appropriately inserted.
Amid the laborious occupations recorded in the foregoing pages, his
social life and surroundings appear to have been most pleasant and
congenial.
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