"--After referring to various subjects
which in his opinion might be usefully pursued systematically at the
Observatory, the Report proceeds thus: "'The character of the
Observatory would be somewhat changed by this innovation, but not, as
I imagine, in a direction to which any objection can be made. It would
become, pro tanto, a physical observatory; and possibly in time its
operations might be extended still further in a physical
direction.'--The consideration of possible changes in the future of
the Observatory leads me to the recollection of actual changes in the
past. In my Annual Reports to the Visitors I have endeavoured to
chronicle these; but still there will be many circumstances which at
present are known only to myself, but which ought not to be beyond the
reach of history. I have therefore lately employed some time in
drawing up a series of skeleton annals of the Observatory (which
unavoidably partakes in some measure of the form of biography), and
have carried it through the critical period, 1836-1851. If I should
command sufficient leisure to bring it down to 1861, I think that I
might then very well stop." (The skeleton annals here referred to are
undoubtedly the manuscript notes which form the basis of the present
biography.
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