Genre:

Reportage, Spoof

Subjects:

Astronomy, Observatories, Scientific Practitioners, Time, Invention

    Claims that John Flamsteed built the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, for 'watching the rise of the celestial bodies' but it is now 'principally used at fair-time for observing the fall of the terrestrial ones, in their declination down the Hill'. Adds that the 'diverting game of Fixing the Meridian is played there daily by the professors', a game in which a ball is pulled to the top of a pole and then allowed to drop. Notes that astronomers enjoy watching the 'apogee and perigee of the swings, the revolutions of the cock-horses on their spheres, and the total eclipse of the booths at eleven o'clock'.