Abstract
THE ROYAL OBSERVATORY AT EDINBURGH.—The new Royal Observatory, which has been in course of erection on Blackford Hill, to the south of Edinburgh, during the last four years, was formally, opened by the Secretary for Scotland, Lord Balfour, on Tuesday. A short article in the Times reminds us that the observatory owes its origin to the presentation to the Scottish nation by the Earl of Crawford of the splendid collection of instruments in his private observatory at Dun Echt, in Aberdeenshire, which was followed by the appointment of Dr. Ralph Copeland, the superintendent at Dun Echt, as Astronomer Royal for Scotland and Professor of Astronomy in the University of Edinburgh in 1889. As there was not sufficient accommodation for the new instruments in the old buildings on the Calton Hill, it was resolved to erect a new observatory worthy of the nation and of Lord Crawford's munificent gift. A Government grant of £33,000, afterwards increased to £36,000, was obtained, and the Town Council of Edinburgh granted on easy terms a site deemed in all respects suitable, on the eastern crest of Blackford Hill, which possesses exceptional stability, a convenient elevation, and unusual purity of atmosphere, the smoke nuisance intruding itself only in one day out of eighteen.
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Our Astronomical Column. Nature 53, 545 (1896). https://doi.org/10.1038/053545a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/053545a0