He has, like Mr.Airy, made the transit instrument incapable of mechanical change for its corrections of error, so that it depends for accuracy upon its faults being known and corrected in the computations.
"All the early observatories of Europe seem to have been built as temples to Urania, and not as working-chambers of science.

The Royal Observatory at Greenwich, the Imperial Observatory of Paris, and the beautiful structure on Calton Hill, Edinboro', were at first wholly useless as observatories.

That of Greenwich had no steadiness, while every pillar in the astronomical temple of Edinboro', though it may tell of the enlightenment of Greece, hides the light of the stars from the Scottish observer.

Well might Struve say that 'An observatory should be simply a box to hold instruments.' "The Leverriers speak English about as well as I do French, and we had a very awkward time of it.

M.Leverrier talked with me a little, and then talked wholly to one of the gentlemen present.