Author: MACLEAR, THOMAS, - G.B.Airy ed.
Title: Verification and extension of La Caille's Arc of Meridian at the Cape of Good Hope; In 2 vols. Vol. I containing Identification of La Caille's Stations .. description of the modern geodetic and astronomical instruments. Geodetic operations for the extension of the arc. Abstract of the astr. operations. Vol. II containing astronomical observations in the extension of the arc. Reduction of the observations. Calculation of the amplitudes. Elements of the stars observed.
Description: (Greenwich), Publ. by order of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, 1866. Large 4to. In 2 vols. W 24 (fold.) lith. pls. (Pl. 10 badly foxed.). Contemp. full cloth, spines rebacked in matching modern cl., original spine labels laid down.). (X, 625, I (Blank); VI, 440 pp.). DSB VIII, pp. 613/14: 'From 1823 he practiced medicine in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, where he set up a small observatory in his garden; he was lent the Wollaston telescope by the Royal Astronomical Society to observe occultations of Aldebaran which he had himself calculated. In 1833 he was appointed Her Majesty's astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope, where he arrived on 5 January 1834, shortly before John Herschel. ... From 1837 to 1847 he carried out the remeasurement and extension of Lacaille's arc as a basis for the survey of the colony, and this earned him the Lalande Prize in 1867 and a Royal Medal in 1869. ... he was keenly interested in African exploration and was a friend of Livingstone and Stanley.': Theal, p. 187: A South African Bibl. vol. III, p. 219: Preface to vol. I (G.B.Airy ed.) 'The earlier sheets of this work were printed in England many years ago; but the later sheets, printed at the Cape of Good Hope, were transmitted to England at a comparitively late time ... After the binding of a large portion of the impression ... had been completed, the expected additions ... were received in England. I am happy now to issue the work in a complete state.':

Keywords: astronomy geodesy behandelen W38Folio