SKETCH OF JAMES GLAISHER, F. R. S. 547 



gulation of the ordnance survey in Ireland, he was charged 

 with the meteorological observations on the Bencorr and Keeper 

 Mountains. These observations were published in 1836. From 

 1833 to 1836 he was assistant at the Madingly Observatory, near 

 Cambridge ; was appointed in the latter year assistant in the 

 astronomical department of the Greenwich Observatory ; and was 

 made in 1840 Superintendent of the Magnetical and Meteorologi- 

 cal Departments of the same institution, where he remained till 

 he retired from the public service at the end of 1874. In 1865, 

 upon the death of Admiral Fitzroy, he was appointed to the con- 

 trol of the meteorological department of the Board of Trade. 

 From 1841 till very recently he has contributed to the registrar- 

 general's reports the quarterly and annual meteorological re- 

 ports embodying the results of the reductions and discussions of 

 the observations of about sixty voluntary observers scattered over 

 England. 



Among Mr. Glaisher's earlier contributions to the literature of 

 meteorology were the " Hygrometrical Tables/' first published 

 in 1845, which has passed through six editions, and is regarded as 

 a fundamental work in connection with the science ; " A Memoir 

 on the Radiation of Heat from Various Substances," 1848 ; certain 

 papers on the forms of snow-crystals, 1855 ; a report on the " Me- 

 teorology of London during the Cholera Epidemic of 1853-'54," 

 published by the Board of Health in 1855 ; and a report on the 

 " Meteorology of India in Relation to the Health of the Troops," 

 1863, which formed an appendix to the report of a Royal Com- 

 mission on the Army in India. In 1857 he conducted the experi- 

 ments and wrote the report of the Royal Commission on the 

 Warming and Ventilation of Dwellings. He was the founder 

 of the Royal Meteorological Society, of which he was the secre- 

 tary for nearly twenty years, and the president in 1867-'68. He 

 is a past President of the Royal Microscopical Society. 



As a member of the British Association he has been active in 

 the meteorological researches undertaken under the direction of 

 that body ; and we find his name attached year after year to the 

 reports on " Luminous Meteors," " Rainfall," " Rate of Increase of 

 Underground Temperature downward," "Circulation of Under- 

 ground Waters as related to the Water-Supply of certain Towns 

 and Districts," and " Mathematical Tables." The reports on " Lu- 

 minous Meteors " were particularly minute and exhaustive. They 

 seem to have been intended to include as full and accurate 

 accounts as it was possible to get of every meteor that fell any- 

 where on the earth within the view of a man intelligent enough 

 to describe it ; and they embody frequent suggestions as to the 

 direction which future research might take. Thus, the report of 

 1874 noticed the apparent connection between some meteor-show- 



