2-979-635 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Royal Observatory, Cape Town, [South Africa], 1857. '...however numerous observations may be in the northern hemisphere, [astronomers] will be unable to complete many of the most important researches unless they are supplemented by similar observations on the southern side of the world's centre...many additions, alterations, and improvements, have been made from time to time, but none so important as that which we are about to describe; viz., the substitution of a new Airy's Transit Circle [Telescope] in place of the former Mural Circle with which all observations of declination have hitherto been made. The Engraving shows the situation of the Observatory, with the Table Mountain in the distance, capped by the "table-cloth" cloud. In the foreground appears a pump with shifting sails, planned and erected by Professor P. Smyth during his residence at the Cape'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.