'--In December Sir John Herschel gave his opinion (to the
Admiralty, I believe) in favour of procuring for the Cape Observatory
a Transit Circle similar to that at Greenwich.--I had much
correspondence about sending Pierce Morton (formerly a pupil of mine
at Cambridge, a clever gentlemanly man, and a high wrangler, but
somewhat flighty) as Magnetic Assistant to the Cape Observatory: he
was with me from May to October, and arrived at the Cape on
Nov. 27th.--I was much engaged with the clock with conical motion of
pendulum, for uniform movement of the Chronographic Barrel.--Regarding
galvanic communications: On Sept. 19th I had prepared a Draft of
Agreement with the South Eastern Railway Company, to which they
agreed. In November I wrote to Sir T. Baring (First Lord of the
Admiralty) and to the Admiralty for sanction, which was given on
Dec. 18th. In December I had various communications about laying wires
through the Park, &c., &c., and correspondence about the possibility
of using sympathetic clocks: in June, apparently, I had seen
Shepherd's sympathetic clock at the Great Exhibition, and had seen the
system of sympathetic clocks at Pawson's, St Paul's Churchyard.--In
the last quarter of this year I was engaged in a series of
calculations of chronological eclipses.
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