152 ASTRONOMY IN WANSTEAD.
material and references on this subject, I was lately induced to give
an outline of this chapter in our "Wanstead Parish Magazine,'' re-
counting the fortunes of the astronomers of Wanstead, and the
famous Telescope and Maypole. I have since enlarged this account,
trusting it may be worthy of preservation in a more permanent
form.
The period in which this quiet rural village attained its scientific
zenith was from the year 1707 to 1749. In the former year Dr.
James Pound, F.R.S., had been presented to the rectorate by Sir
Richard Child, Bart., of Wanstead House. Dr. Pound was born at
Bishop's Canning, in Wilts, 1669. In 1687 he went to St. Mary's
Hall, Oxford, and in February, 1694, was at Hart Hall, and took
his first degree, passing to M.A. on 6th June the same year. He
subsequently studied at Gloucester Hall, and in 1697 took the
degree of B.M. with a licence to practise medicine. Then he was
ordained, and went out as chaplain to the settlement in Pulo
Condore about 1700. In a letter of Bishop Tanner's, dated Septem-
ber, 1704, in the Bodleian Library, we find : "My brother Moore has
come home from the East Indies ; left our honest countryman, Dr.
Pound, well .... he has a mind to come home, but the
Governor tells him that if the Doctor goes, he and the rest of the
company will not stay behind." By the rising of the Indians in
1705 the settlement was destroyed, and Dr. Pound was one of the
very few who escaped, returning to England in 1706 ; and in July
of the next year was appointed rector of Wanstead. Here he lived
the remainder of his life, and became well known as a naturalist,
and a most competent and accurate astronomer.
Among the instruments used by him was one of the large
telescopes constructed by the learned philosopher of the Hague,
Christian Huygens, of Zulichem, who was one of the first elected
foreign members of the Royal Society of London in 1663, and had
presented this telescope to the Society in 1691.
The general form of this instrument, which was designed to be
used without the aid of a tube, is fully described and figured in his
"Astroscopia Compendiaria," quarto, The Hague, 1684. The construc-
tion (in brief) was thus: The object glass (which in the present case
has a focal length of 122 feet), was fixed in a tube attached to a rod,
to this rod a stout cord was fixed, the other end of which was
attached to another rod with a winch to wind up the cord, and to
the end of this rod the eyepiece was fixed. This eyepiece consisted