Research Catalog

Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, 1820-1831 : the founding of a colonial observatory : incorporating a biography of Fearon Fallows

Title
Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, 1820-1831 : the founding of a colonial observatory : incorporating a biography of Fearon Fallows / by Brian Warner.
Author
Warner, Brian.
Publication
Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer Academic Publishers, [1995], ©1995.

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Details

Additional Authors
Fallows, Fearon, 1789-1839.
Description
xii, 241 pages : illustrations; 25 cm
Summary
  • This volume presents a comprehensive account of the origin, construction and use of the first major astronomical observatory in the southern hemisphere. Technical aspects, such as the instruments and their makers, the installation of the instruments and their initial problems, are described. In addition, the difficulties of founding a scientific institution in a remote colony are discussed in detail.
  • The book includes a biography of the Cambridge-trained mathematician Fearon Fallows, the Observatory's first Director. The architecture, building methods and construction techniques are analyzed. There is also a wealth of detail on social aspects of life in Cape Town in the 1820s, including slavery and ecclesiastical matters. The book is unusual in the emphasis it gives to the human side of the story.
  • . It will be of interest to historians of science, astronomers, and historians, particularly of early nineteenth-century South Africa.
Subject
Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope > History
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (p. [227]-236) and index.
ISBN
0792335279 (hb : alk. paper)
LCCN
95017562
OCLC
  • 32465151
  • ocm32465151
Owning Institutions
Columbia University Libraries