On that evening Mr
Hind discovered the planet; and he requested me to give a name. I
remembered Horace's 'Praecipe lugubres cantus, Melpomene,' and
Cowley's 'I called the buskin'd muse Melpomene and told her what sad
story I would write,' and suggested Melpomene, or Penthos: Melpomene
was adopted.--The first move about the Deal Time Ball was in a letter
from Commander Baldock to the Admiralty, suggesting that a Time Ball,
dropped by galvanic current from Greenwich, should be attached to one
of the South Foreland Lighthouses. The Admiralty sent this for my
Report. I went to the place, and I suggested in reply (Nov. 15th) that
a better place would be at an old signal station on the chalk
downs. The decisive change from this was made in 1853.--As the result
of my examination and enquiries into the subject of sympathetic
clocks, I established 8 sympathetic clocks in the Royal Observatory,
one of which outside the entrance gate had a large dial with
Shepherd's name as Patentee. Exception was taken to this by the
solicitor of a Mr Bain who had busied himself about galvanic
clocks. After much correspondence I agreed to remove Shepherd's name
till Bain had legally established his claim. This however was never
done: and in 1853 Shepherd's name was restored.
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