SKETCH OF JAMES GLAISHER, F.R.S. 551 



or breaks, and separating us completely from the earth. No iso- 

 lated clouds hover above this plane. We seem to be citizens of 

 the sky, separated from the earth by a barrier which seems im- 

 passable. We are free from all apprehension such as may exist 

 when nothing separates us from the earth. We can suppose the 

 laws of gravitation are for a time suspended, and, in the upper 

 world to which we seem now to belong, the silence and quiet are 

 so intense that peace and calm seem to reign alone." The descrip- 

 tions of sky and cloud scenes that follow are very picturesque. 



Mr. Glaisher was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1849. 

 On the death of Lord Chief -Baron Sir F. Pollock, about 1870, 

 he became the third President of the Photographic Society of 

 Great Britain, an office which he still holds. This society pre- 

 sented to him in 1887 a marble bust of himself, executed under 

 its direction by the sculptor Albert Toft. He was a juror in the 

 class of scientific and philosophical instruments at the Great 

 Exhibitions of 1851 and 1863, and was the reporter of the class 

 in 1851. 



Mr. Glaisher is the author of more than one hundred books 

 and papers relating to astronomy, meteorology, and the theory 

 of numbers. Some of these have already been mentioned. Among 

 the others are many papers in the " Proceedings of the British 

 Association " relating to his balloon ascensions and the subjects 

 of his special investigations. His best-known work is " Travels 

 in the Air," of which he is joint author, which is composed of the 

 narratives by himself of his own balloon voyages and observa- 

 tions, and accounts by M. Gaston Tissandier and M. de Fonvielle 

 of their experiments in the same line. He edited and compressed 

 the English version of Camille Flammarion's " Atmosphere," per- 

 forming, in addition to the regular labor of such a task, that of 

 reducing the notations of the French system to their equivalents 

 in English units, and replacing French observations and data 

 with English corresponding ones. In 1877 he translated and 

 edited Amede'e Guillemin's " World of Comets." After he retired 

 from the Royal Observatory he devoted himself to the completion 

 of the factor tables, begun by Burckhardt in 1814 and continued 

 by Dace in 1862-'65; Burckhardt published the first three mill- 

 ions, and Dace the seventh, eighth, and ninth millions. The three 

 intervening millions have been calculated by Mr. Glaisher and 

 published, with a full enumeration relating to the whole nine 

 millions, in three quarto volumes. Since 1880 Mr. Glaisher has 

 been chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Ex- 

 ploration Fund. 



