In June, all accounts, &c. about the
Transit Circle were closed at the Admiralty, and the instrument was
completely mounted at the Cape.--Dr Scoresby (who in his own way was
very imperious) had attacked my methods of correcting the compass in
iron ships: I replied in a letter to the Athenaeum on Oct. 17th.--I
made enquiries about operations for determining the longitude of
Vienna, but was utterly repelled by the foreign telegraph offices.--In
the Royal Astronomical Society; I prepared the Address on presenting
the Medal to Ruemker.--In Melbourne University: The first letter
received was from the Chancellor of the University dated Jan. 26th,
requesting that Sir John Herschel, Prof. Malden, Mr Lowe
(subsequently Chancellor of the Exchequer), and I would select
professors. We had a great deal of correspondence, meetings,
examination of testimonials, &c., and on August 14th we agreed on
Wilson, Rowe, McCoy, and Hearn.--On Feb. 17th I received the Prussian
Order of Merit.--I had correspondence with the Treasury on the scale
to be adopted for the Maps of the British Survey. I proposed 1/3000,
and for some purposes 1/600.--I printed a Paper on the Deluge, in
which I shewed (I believe to certainty) that the Deluge of Genesis was
merely a Destructive Flood of the Nile.
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