THE GREENWICH OBSERVATORY. "The observatory was founded by Charles II.
The king that 'never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one' was
yet sagacious enough to start an institution which has grown to be a
thing of might, and this, too, of his own will, and not from the
influence of courtiers. One of the hospital buildings of Greenwich, then
called the 'House of Delights,' was the residence of Henrietta Maria,
and the young prince probably played on the little hill now the site of
the observatory.
"But Charles, though he started an observatory, did not know very well
what was needed. The first building consisted of a large, octagonal
room, with windows all around; it was considered sufficiently firm
without any foundation, and sufficiently open to the heavens with no
opening higher than windows. This room is now used as a place of deposit
for instruments, and busts and portraits of eminent men, and also as the
dancing-hall for the director's family.
"Under Mr. Airy's [Footnote: The late Sir George Airy.] direction, the
walls of the observing-room have become pages of its history. The
transit instruments used by Halley, Bradley, and Pond hang side by side;
the zenith sector with which Bradley discovered the 'aberration of
light,' now moving rustily on its arc, is the ornament of another room;
while the shelves of the computing-room are filled with volumes of
unpublished observations of Flamstead and others.
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