Jackson now determined to make Van Buren president in 1836, and bent all his energies to that end.
Nevertheless, on economic as well as political grounds, the leaders of both parties in the Transvaal were prepared to consider favourably the proposals put forward by Dr Jameson at the close of 1906 for a closer union of all the self-governing colonies, and the first direct step to that end was taken at an inter-colonial conference held in May 1908.
On his retirement he settled in Devonshire as a small landowner, and contemplated a farming life for his son Frederick, giving him a practical training to that end.
He especially devoted himself to investigations of the radiation of heat from the sun and its absorption by the earth's atmosphere, and to that end devised various delicate methods and instruments, including his electric compensation pyrheliometer, invented in 1893, and apparatus for obtaining a photographic representation of the infra-red spectrum (1895).
He was an avowed advocate of permanent Government ownership of the telegraph and telephone, and in Dec. 1918 urged legislation to that end.
