GO President's Address. [Feb. 



indeed, observations of the egress of the planet as retarded by parallax, these 

 localities will be essential. But the well known skill of the Russian astro- 

 nomers leads to the most implicit confidence that no portion of the required 

 observations will be omitted in their hands. Such, gentlemen, are a few of 

 the preparations which have been in progress for the observation of this rare 

 phenomenon. And I am happy in now being able to announce to you 

 that the Government of India have, on representations made to them of the 

 value of a series of observations especially photographic in the clearer atmo- 

 sphere of some high elevation in North India, at once sanctioned the necessary 

 expenditure for instruments, and have telegraphed for their immediate pre- 

 paration. 



In connection with this, the General Committee of the British Asso- 

 ciation at their meeting in 1872, August last, requested the Council to take 

 such steps as seemed desirable to urge the Indian Government to prepare 

 these instruments, with the view of assisting in the Transit of Venus in 1874. 

 And they added, — and to this I would ask your special attention — " and for 

 the continuation of solar observations in India." 



It may perhaps appear to some that we have quite enough experience 

 of solar effects in this country without establishing an observatory for the 

 special study of such facts. The intimate connection of what we speak of 

 as the weather with changes on the solar surface, the remarkable statements 

 lately put forth apparently with good ground, that the cyclones of the Indian 

 Ocean and its more southerly extensions are also connected with these changes, 

 and the bold assertion of a belief, by Mr. Maury, whose opportunities for 

 observation have been unequalled, that he is fully convinced that changes 

 in the seasons can be foretold with the aid of a properly conducted and 

 sufficiently wide system of observations, all these facts tend to show the vast 

 interests involved and the high importance which naturally attaches to such 

 observations. And we cannot but express an ardent hope, that it may 

 commend itself to the Government of this country to maintain and render 

 permanent the small establishment about to be fixed on some elevated spot 

 for the observation of the transit of Venus, and so form one observatory to be 

 maintained for a special object and with a view to a continuous and sus- 

 tained system of observations of those peculiar phenomena. 



Col. Tennant, in submitting a brief statement of the advantages of such 

 an observatory, has very justly insisted earnestly on the vast importance of 

 determining beforehand the nature of the work to be done, and of carefully 

 adhering to this system when once established. He pointedly refers to the 

 glorious result of such a rigid adhesion to one object of work in the obser- 

 vatory of Greenwich, established with a special view to perfecting the art of 

 navigation. Since the days of Charles the Second, the efforts of the astrono- 

 mers of Greenwich have been without cessation devote'd to building up what 



