'In regard not only to accuracy of observation, and to detail in publication of the methods of observing, but also to steadiness of system followed through many years, and to completeness of calculation of the useful results deduced from the observations, this work may shame any other collection of observations in this or any other country.' This catalogue was not Flamsteed's only achievement. He had determined the latitude of the Observatory, the obliquity of the ecliptic, and the position of the equinoctial points. He thought out an original method of obtaining the absolute right ascensions of stars by differential observations of the places of the stars and the sun near to both equinoxes. He had revised and improved Horrox's theory of the lunar motions, which was by far the best existing in Flamsteed's day. He showed the existence of the long inequality of Jupiter and Saturn; that is to say, the periodic influence which they exercise upon each other. He determined the time in which the sun rotates on its axis, and the position of that axis. He observed an apparent movement of the stars in the course of a year, which he ascribed, though erroneously, to the stellar parallax, and which was explained by the third Astronomer Royal, Bradley. Flamsteed not only met with harsh treatment during his lifetime; he has not yet received, except from a few, anything like the meed of appreciation which is his just due; but, at least, his successors in the office have not forgotten him. They have been proud that their official residence should be known as Flamsteed House, and his name is inscribed over the main entrance of the latest and finest of the Observatory buildings, and his bust looks forth from its front towards the home where he laboured so devotedly for nearly fifty years. But he has received little honour, save at Greenwich, and--in spite of the proverb--in his other home, the village of Burstow, in Surrey, of which he was for many years the rector. Here a stained glass window representing, appropriately, the Adoration of the Magi, has been recently set up to his memory, largely through the interest taken in his history by an amateur astronomer of the neighbourhood, Mr. W. Tebb, F.R.A.S. No instrument of Flamsteed's remains in the Observatory, his wife removing them after his death. But we may consider his principal instrument, the mural quadrant made for him by Abraham Sharp, as represented by the remains of a quadrant by the same artist, which was presented to the Observatory by the Rev. N. S. Heineken, in 1865, and now hangs over the door of the transit room. CHAPTER III HALLEY AND HIS SUCCESSORS