REPORT OF THE COUNCIL. XXlX 



" Eeport of the Kew Committee of the British Association for 1852-53. 



'• Since the last meeting of tiie British Association, the Kew Committee 

 have completed the series of balloon ascents which they had contemplated — 

 four ascents in all having been made, viz. on Aug. 17, Aug. 26, Oct. 21, and 

 Nov. 10, 1852. A Report of these ascents was communicated by the Kew 

 Committee to the Council of the British Association, on the 29th Nov. 1852. 

 A detailed account of the experiments, with a discussion of the general results, 

 having been prepared by Mr. Welsh, was communicated in April last, by the 

 Council of the British Association, to the Royal Society, and has since been 

 printed in the Philosophical Transactions. At the request of the Council of 

 the British Association, the Royal Society have granted to them 500 copies 

 of the paper for distribution among their members ; 50 copies have been 

 presented to those gentlemen who took a part in the experiments, by making 

 contemporaneous meteorological observations or otherwise. The remaining 

 copies will be distributed to the purchasers of Dove's Isothermal Lines. 

 The sum of 26 U. 2s. 5d. was granted by the Royal Society, from their 

 Wollaston Fund, to defray the expense of these ascents. 



" Of this sum 243/. 2s. 5d. was expended, leaving a balance of 18/., which 

 has been repaid to the Treasurer of the Royal Society. 



" The Committee have, up to this time, been enabled to supply seventy 

 thermometers, graduated under their superintendence by Mr. Welsh. 



" All the applications yet received have now been complied with, except 

 three or four for instruments of unusual construction or extent of graduation. 



" On the 30th of May, 1853, the Committee passed the following reso- 

 lutions : — 



" ' 1st. That in order to facilitate the comparisons of thermometers with 

 the standard at Kew, the Committee are prepared to furnish such instrument- 

 makers as may apply to them with a standard thermometer at the charge 

 of 1/. 



" ' 2nd. The Committee are prepared to receive thermometers and to 

 furnish a table of their errors, provided such thermometers are forwarded to 

 Kew free of expense. — It was subsequently resolved that the charge for the 

 verification of such thermometers should be 3s. 6d. for each instrument. 



" ' 3rd. That as there are many very carefully recorded series of observa- 

 tions made with thermometers that have not been previously verified, the 

 Committee will also be prepared (on receiving applications from the ob- 

 servers) to furnish the results of a comparison with the Kew standard. Such 

 instruments to be forwarded to the Observatory free of expense.' 



" The above resolutions having been forwarded to the editors oi i\\eAthe- 

 nceum and the Literary Gazette, were kindly noticed by them in their re- 

 spective journals, but with one exception (by an optician for a thermometer) 

 no further application has been received by the Committee. It is, however, 

 very probable that when such facilities for the correction of observations 

 made with imperfect thermometers are more generally known, further appli- 

 cations will be received. Except to those who have been actually engaged 

 in reducing such observations, it is almost impossible to conceive the amount 

 of comparatively useless observations that have been and are now daily 

 recorded, owing to the imperfect instruments employed. 



" During the past year a very considerable portion of the time of Mr. Welsh 

 has been occupied in the arrangement for and the discussions of the results 

 of the balloon experiments, and as he has no one to assist him in the carrying 

 out of any meteorological observations, the amount of general work in the 

 Observatory during the past year has necessarily been much less than in 



