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OBITUARY. 



James Glaishee, F.E.S. F.K.A.S. F.R.Met.S. F.E.M.S. 



1809-1903. 



James Glaisher was born on April 9, 1809. When only 20 years 

 of age he was engaged on the Ordnance Survey of Ireland. In 

 1833 he obtained an appointment as assistant at the Cambridge 

 Observatory, but two years later followed Prof. Airy to Greenwich, 

 In 1841 he was placed at the head of the newly founded Magnetic 

 and Meteorological Department, a post which he retained till 1874, 

 and during his term of office inaugurated the quarterly reports 

 issued by the Registrar-General. Mr. Glaisher was an enthusiastic 

 aeronaut, not so much for the love of the ascents as in the hope 

 that important discoveries relating to the constitution of the 

 atmosphere might be made from these excursions. In one of these 

 ascents, made in company with Mr. Coxwell, on September 5 y 

 1862, a height of nearly 7 miles was attained. On this occasion 

 Mr. Glaisher became unconscious and Mr. Coxwell had to use his 

 teeth, his hands being quite benumbed, to pull the valve-rope in 

 order to effect a descent. 



Mr. Glaisher was President of the Royal Microscopical Society 

 from 1865-1868. He was also a member of the Royal, the Royal 

 Photographic, the Royal Aeronautical, and the Royal Meteorological 

 Societies. Of this last, he was the founder, its Secretary for 

 twenty years, and its President in 1867-8. 



Besides many articles in the Philosophical Transactions and 

 other scientific journals, he was the author of Hygrometric Tables, 

 Travels in the Air, and the translator of Guillemin's Lcs Corrietes. 



Mr. Glaisher died on February 7, 1903, and was buried at 

 Shirley, near Croydon. 



