Stories of higher valour and nobler courage yet are also hinted: the calm discipline of the crew of the Victoria as she sank from the ram of the Camperdown, the yet nobler devotion of the men of the Birkenhead, as they formed up in line on deck and cheered the boats that bore away the women and children to safety, whilst they themselves went down with the ship into the shark-crowded sea. 'There rose no murmur from the ranks, no thought By shameful strength, unhonoured life to seek; Our post to quit we were not trained, nor taught To trample down the weak. 'What followed, why recall? The brave who died Died without flinching in that bloody surf. They sleep as well beneath that purple tide As others under turf.' CHAPTER VII THE TRANSIT AND CIRCLE DEPARTMENTS The determination of time is a duty the importance of which readily commends itself to the general public. It is easy to see that in any civilized country it is very necessary to have an accurate standard of time. Our railways and telegraphs make it quite impossible for us to be content with the rough-and-ready sun-dial which satisfied our forefathers. But it should be remembered that it was neither to establish a 'longitude nought,' nor to create a system of standard time, that Greenwich Observatory was founded in 1675. It was for 'The Rectifying the Tables of the Motions of the Heavens and the Places of the Fixed Stars, in order to find out the so-much-desired Longitude at Sea for the perfecting the Art of Navigation.' The two related departments, therefore, those of the Transit and the Circle, which are concerned in the work of making star-catalogues, come next in order to the Time Department. Though both departments deal with the same instrument, the transit circle, they are at present placed at opposite ends of the Observatory domain; the Circle Department being lodged in the upper computing room of the old building; the Transit Department in the south wing of the New Observatory in the south ground. It may be asked why, if this were the purpose of the Observatory at its foundation, two and a quarter centuries ago; if, as was the case, the work was set on foot from the beginning and was carried out with every possible care, how comes it that it is still the fundamental work of the Observatory, and, instead of being completed, has assumed greater proportions at the present day than ever before? The answer to this inquiry may be found in a special application of the old proverb, originally directed against the discontent of man: 'The more he has, the more he wants.' For, however paradoxical it may seem, it is true that the fuller a star-catalogue is, and the more accurate the places of the stars that it contains, the greater is the need for a yet fuller catalogue, with places more accurate still.