Gill
DAVID, SIR a Scotch astronomer; born in Aberdeen, June 12, 1843; educated at Marischal College. He was chief of staff of Lord Lindsay's observatory, founded in 1870; in charge of Lindsay's expedition to Mauritius in 1874 to observe the transit of Venus and the opposition of Juno, by means of the heliometer, for the determination of the solar parallax. He determined the longitudes of Malta, Alexandria, Suez, Aden, Bombay, Seychelles, Reunion, Mauritius, and Rodriguez by cable and chronometers, and measured the first base-line for the Egyptian triangulation at the request of the khedive. In 1877 he was in charge of the expedition to Ascension to observe the opposition of Mars for parallax; and in 1879 appointed director of the Cape Observatory. In 1896-1897, he made the first geodetic survey of Natal, Cape Colony, and Rhodesia. He introduced cataloguing the stars by photographs.
Wrote "History of the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope" (1913). He died in 1914.