Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/479

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462

GILL— GILLMOEE.

of Savock, in the same county. He was educated at Marischal Col- lege^ Aberdeen. He obtained his first experience in practical astro- nomy in the observatory at Aber- deen, and in a private observatory which he erected in the same city. Mr. Gill was associated with Lord Lindsay in the designs and details of the large observatory founded by that nobleman at Dunecht in 1870, taking the position as chief of the staff. He thus became en- gaged in the organisation of the expedition to the Mauritius, fitted out by Lord Lindsay, for the obser- vation of the transit of Venus, on which occasion advantage was taJcen of the circumstance of a heliometer forming part of the equipment to determine the sun's distance by measures of the planet Juno. The details of this work were published by Lord Lindsay as the joint work of himself and Mr. Gill. In con- nection with the same ex})edition, Mr. Gill arranged and personally conducted the whole of the chrono- metric and telegraphic longitude determinations connecting Berlin, Malta, Alexandria, Suez, Aden, Bombay, Seychelles, Reunion, Mau- ritius, and Bodsiguer. It was while engaged upon these opera- tions that he imdertook, at the re- quest of the Khedive, the measure- ment of the first base line of the geodetic survey of Egypt. In 1877 Mr. Gill laid before the Eoyal Astronomical Society a proposal to determine the sun's distance, by heliometric observations of the planet Mars about the very favour- able apposition of that year. The proposal having been accepted, Mr. Gill proceeded to the island of Ascension, being occupied there about six months in the necessary preparations and carrying out of the scheme. In 1879 he was ap- pointed Astronomer Boyal at the Cape of Good Hope. He married, in 1870, Isabel Sarah, second daughter of Mr. John Black, of Linhead, N.B. (this lady is the

authoress of "Six Months Ascension"). Mr. Gill is a C mander of the Order of the In jidi6, and the writer of var astronomical papers.

GILL, Edmund, lands( painter, was born Nov. 29, 182( 28, Sydney Street, City Boad, in parish of Clerkenwell. His fat who was apprenticed to a japan soon left this trade to follow profession of an artist, never hai received any instruction in the and he was occasionally an exhifc at the Boyal Academy. The fai settled- at Ludlow, in Shropsl where the son, who received s instruction in water-colour paini under an old pupil of Glover's, attracted by the pictures<]^ue soei around their pla!ce of residence, resolved to adopt landscape pa ing as a profession. The uti afterwards removed to Heref In 1841 young Gill came to Lon< and two years later he was admil a student at the Boyal Acade To the exhibitions of the Acad< he has been a regular contribu With a few exceptions his numei pictures are drawn from the scei of Wales or Scotland; from rocky coast, with stermy sea effe river scenes, with waterfalls ui various aspects, in the fiood, gentle cascade. Among his w< we may mention "A Storm Sc at St. Gowan's" (1846) ; "Fal the Llugwy, Bettws-y-Coed" (18< " Bhiadr Du, North Wales " (18< " On the Biver Lledr, North Wal (1864) ; '* Fall on the Biver Cl^ Cora Linn " (1866) ; " The Wa dividing from the Dry Land,' expressed in the Book of Gen (1869); -'Waterfall on the B Mellte, South Wales " (exhibited the Crystal Palace, 1872) ; " A SI wreck on a Bocky Coast" (18( " Storm subsiding on a Bo Coast" (1875); "Bapids" (18^ and "The North West Coast Cornwall" (1882).

GILLMOBE, General Qui Adams, born in Loraine com