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History: The winding road over the Hex River Pass takes one from the spectacular Hex River Valley with almost dramatic suddenness right into the Karoo. The first town to be reached is Touws River, a railway centre. There behind the Douglas Hotel, stand two concrete pillars that bear witness to pioneer work in the field of South African astronomy in the nineteenth century.
Astronomical observations began in South Africa at a very early stage. As long ago as 1685 the Rev. Guy Tachard established an observatory in Cape Town. From 1751 to 1753 the Abbé N. L. de la Caille worked on a map of the southern skies. In 1761 two English astronomers, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon were on their way to Sumatra to observe the transit of Venus under the aegis of the Royal Society; their ship was delayed, so they did the work at the Cape instead. During the nineteenth century Sir John Herschel and Sir Thomas Maclear both carried out researches of the greatest value at the Cape.
The two concrete pillars at Touws River, however, commemorate the observation of a later transit of Venus, on 6th December, 1882. The phenomenon of the transit of Venus was important in the determination of distances within the solar system and was of considerable interest to astronomers for this reason. The occurrence of 1882 was observed from several stations: by Sir David Gill from the Royal Observatory in Cape Town, by two of his staff from Aberdeen and by an American expedition under Professor Simon Newcomb from the grounds of the Huguenot Seminary in Wellington. The British expedition, whose object was to establish the distance between the earth and the sun, set up their instruments at Touws River, then known as Montagu Road. The research team was led by A. Marth assisted by C. M. Stevens who was attached to the observatory in Cape Town until 1876, and by Cpl. J. Thornton.
One of the pillars still bears the following inscription:
Transit of Venus
Dec. 6th 1882
Astronomers
A. Marth
Stevens
Assistant
I. Thornton Corporal.
Proclaimed 1938"
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