To what extent this doctrine is correct, may perhaps yet admit of doubt. It cannot, however, admit of a doubt, that it is unwise to crown it with official authority, and thus expose the officers of their service to depend on means which may be quite insufficient for their purpose.
How the Board of Longitude, after expressly directing this instrument to be made and tried, could come to the decision at which they arrived, appears inexplicable. The known difference of opinion amongst the best observers respecting the repeating principle, ought to have rendered them peculiarly cautious, nor ought the opinion of a Troughton, that instruments of less than one foot in diameter may be considered, "for astronomy, as little better than playthings,"[1] to have been rejected without the most carefully detailed experiments. There were amongst that body, persons who must have examined minutely the work on the Pendulum. Captain Kater must have felt those difficulties in the perusal of it which other observers have experienced; and he who was placed in the Board of Longitude especially for his knowledge of instruments, might, in a few hours, have arrived at more decisive facts.
- ↑ Memoirs of the Astronomical Society, Vol. I. p. 53.
