The next four years seem to have passed exceedingly pleasantly to him. The notes of ill-health are few. He was making rapid progress in his acquaintanceship with the work of other astronomers, particularly with those of the three marvellously gifted young men--Horrox, Crabtree, and Gascoigne--who had passed away shortly before his own birth. He was making new friends in scientific circles, and, in particular, Sir Jonas Moore was evidently esteeming him more and more highly. In 1674 he became more intimate with Newton, the occasion which led to this acquaintanceship being the amusing one, that his assistance was asked by Newton, who had found himself unable to adjust a microscope, having forgotten its object-glass--not the only instance of the great mathematician's absent-mindedness. The same year he took his degree of A.M. at Cambridge, designing to enter the Church; but Sir Jonas Moore was extremely anxious to give him official charge of an observatory, and was urging the Royal Society to build an astronomical observatory at Chelsea College, which then belonged to that body. He therefore came up to London, and resided some months with Sir Jonas Moore at the Tower. But shortly after his coming up to London, 'an accident happened,' to use his own expression, that hastened, if it did not occasion, the building of Greenwich Observatory. 'A Frenchman that called himself Le Sieur de St. Pierre, having some small skill in astronomy, and made an interest with a French lady, then in favour at Court, proposed no less than the discovery of the Longitude, and had procured a kind of Commission from the King to the Lord Brouncker, Dr. Ward (Bishop of Salisbury), Sir Christopher Wren, Sir Charles Scarborough, Sir Jonas Moore, Colonel Titus, Dr. Pell, Sir Robert Murray, Mr. Hook, and some other ingenious gentlemen about the town and Court, to receive his proposals, with power to elect, and to receive into their number, any other skilful persons; and having heard them, to give the King an account of them, with their opinion whether or no they were practicable, and would show what he pretended. Sir Jonas Moore carried me with him to one of their meetings, where I was chosen into their number; and, after, the Frenchman's proposals were read, which were: '(1) To have the year and day of the observations. '(2) The height of two stars, and on which side of the meridian they appeared. '(3) The height of the moon's two limbs. '(4) The height of the pole--all to degrees and minutes.