et all this right, and began observations. He
had the good fortune to secure the help of his nephew, John Bradley, as
assistant, and the companionship seems to have been as happy as that
previous one of James Bradley and his uncle Pound. John Bradley was able
to carry on the observations when his uncle was absent in Oxford, and the
work the two got through together in the first year is (in the words of
Bradley's biographer Rigaud) "scarcely to be credited." The transit
observations occupy 177 folio pages, and no less than 255 observations
were taken on one night. And at the same time, it must be remembered,
Bradley was still carrying on his nutation observations at Wansted, still
lecturing at Oxford, and not content with all this, began a course of
experiments on the length of the seconds' pendulum. Truly a giant for hard
work!

[Sidenote: New instruments.]

But, in spite of his care in setting them right, the instruments in the
Observatory were found to be hopelessly defective. The history of the
instruments at the Royal Observatory is a curious one. When Flamsteed was
appointed the first Astronomer Royal he was given the magnificent salary
of L100 a year, and no instruments to observe with. He purchased some
instruments with his own money, and at his death they were claimed by his
executors. Hence Halley, the second Astronomer Royal, found the
Observatory totally unprovided in this respect. He managed to persuade the
nation to furnish the funds for an equipment; but Halley, though a man of
great ability in other ways, did not know a good instrument from a bad
one; so that Bradley's first few years at the Observatory were wasted
owing to the imperfection of the equipment. When this was fully realised
he asked for funds to buy new instruments, and such was the confidence
felt in him that he got what he asked for without much difficulty. More
than L1000, a large sum for those days, was spent under his direction,
the principal purchases being two quadrants for observation of the
position of the stars, one to the north and the other to the south. With
these quadrants, which represented the perfection of such apparatus at
that time, Bradley made that long and wonderful series of observations
which is the starting-point of our knowledge of the movements of the
stars. The instruments are still in the Royal Observatory, the more
important of the two in its original position as Bradley mounted it and
left it.

[Sidenote: Wor