Halley succeeded Flamsteed to find that the whole place had been gutted by the latter’s executors. In 1721 he got a transit instrument, and in 1726 a mural quadrant by Graham. His successor in 1742, Bradley, replaced this by a fine brass quadrant, eight feet radius, by Bird; and Bradley’s zenith sector was purchased for the observatory. An instrument like this, specially designed for zenith stars, is capable of greater rigidity than a more universal instrument; and there is no trouble with refraction in the zenith. For these reasons Bradley had set up this instrument at Kew, to attempt the proof of the earth’s motion by observing the annual parallax of stars. He certainly found an annual variation of zenith distance, but not at the times of year required by the parallax. This led him to the discovery of the “aberration” of light and of nutation. Bradley has been described as the founder of the modern system of accurate observation. He died in 1762, leaving behind him thirteen folio volumes of valuable but unreduced observations. Those relating to the stars were reduced by Bessel and published in 1818, at Königsberg, in his well-known standard work, _Fundamenta Astronomiae_. In it are results showing the laws of refraction, with tables of its amount, the maximum value of aberration, and other constants. Bradley was succeeded by Bliss, and he by Maskelyne (1765), who carried on excellent work, and laid the foundations of the Nautical Almanac (1767). Just before his death he induced the Government to replace Bird’s quadrant by a fine new mural _circle_, six feet in diameter, by Troughton, the divisions being read off by microscopes fixed on piers opposite to the divided circle. In this instrument the micrometer screw, with a divided circle for turning it, was applied for bringing the micrometer wire actually in line with a division on the circle—a plan which is still always adopted. Pond succeeded Maskelyne in 1811, and was the first to use this instrument. From now onwards the places of stars were referred to the pole, not to the zenith; the zero being obtained from measures on circumpolar stars. Standard stars were used for giving the clock error. In 1816 a new transit instrument, by Troughton, was added, and from this date the Greenwich star places have maintained the very highest accuracy. George Biddell Airy, Seventh Astronomer Royal,[4] commenced his Greenwich labours in 1835. His first and greatest reformation in the work of the observatory was one he had already established at Cambridge, and is now universally adopted. He held that an observation is not completed until it has been reduced to a useful form; and in the case of the sun, moon, and planets these results were, in every case, compared with the tables, and the tabular error printed.