Fascinating and rare separately-printed paper on the state of science in colonial Australia. This short yet detailed report was prepared by Charles Todd (1826–1910), formerly assistant mathematician at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, who emigrated to South Australia to assist the implementation of the overland telegraph. Todd reports that due to his huge workload on the telegraph he has not been able to identify the comet recently observed in Adelaide with any previously recorded.

Fascinating and rare separately-printed paper on the state of science in colonial Australia. This short yet detailed report was prepared by Charles Todd (1826–1910), formerly assistant mathematician at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, who emigrated to South Australia to assist the implementation of the overland telegraph. Todd reports that due to his huge workload on the telegraph he has not been able to identify the comet recently observed in Adelaide with any previously recorded.

The article is effectively a proposal for a proper observatory in Adelaide, to be fitted out with telescope and transit circle at the cost of £1200, plus expenses associated with freighting this delicate equipment from London and installing it in a suitable premises. The article mentions another Adelaide scientist of note, Benjamin Herschel Babbage (son of the inventor of modern computing) who likewise laments the lack of a proper telescope in Adelaide.

This printing is rare and is held in only two Australian public collections (State Library of South Australia and the National Library). Ferguson mentions a third copy held by the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at the University of Sydney, although the status of this copy cannot be readily ascertained.