162 Mk. J. Betce on the Recent Progress of the 



under the charge of Captain Fitzroy, himself a distinguished navigator 

 and man of science. 



(5.) A main feature in this grand scheme is the perfect unity in the 

 instrumental means and the objects of inquiiy. After trial of the 

 instruments constructed by various makers, Mr. Welsh of Kew selected 

 those of Messrs. Negretti and Zambra, M. Casella & Co., Adie, Newman, 

 and Barrow, as the best and cheapest. Some he constructs at the 

 observatory. These are all compared with the standards, and carefully 

 adjusted so as to give exactly similai* indications. There have been 

 thus verified each year- for the last two or three years, about 3,000 

 thermometers, 250 barometers, and 1,300 hj-^grometers, for the United 

 States, our own marine, and those of other nations. Kew, indeed, will 

 soon be the great central observatory, whence the instruments of all 

 nations will be sent forth. We may thus confidently i-eckon on obtain- 

 ing, in a few years, an extensive series of I'eally trustworthy results. The 

 discussion and ai-rangement of the observations is to be effected partly 

 in this country and partly under charge of the Smithsonian Institute 

 at Washington — a noble institution, founded by an Englishman, the 

 annual income of which by the bequest is about £6,500.* The observa- 

 tions already collected at our own Admiralty, and those which will in 

 future be sent in, will all be discussed and arranged under Captain 

 Fitzroy in the meteorological department of the Board of Trade. For 

 the expense of this department, as well as for purchase of instruments. 

 Parliament has for the last two years voted an annual sum. 



(6.) Scotland has been long distinguished for her attention to mete- 

 orology, and in this important field her philosophers have reaped many 

 honours. Sir David Brewster was the first, many years ago, to obtain an 

 hom-ly series of observations running through several years, and to draw 

 from them new and valuable deductions on the subject of atmospheric 

 temperature and pressure, at varying heights, which later observers 

 have but little modified. Sir John Leslie led the way in experimenting 

 on the internal heat of the globe, and on the conducting power of its 

 various strata, both in reference to the absorption of solar heat, and the 

 transmission of the temperature proper to the interior ; a subject after- 

 wai'ds taken up and largely extended, in a most philosophic spirit, by 



* 

 * Mr. Smithson made the grant to the United States instead of this country out of 

 pique, because a paper of his, read at the Royal Society, was refused a place in its 

 Transacdom. Mr. Smithson died in 1829, and the institution was founded in 1846, with 

 the interest accrued. The handsome building is now completed, and contains large lecture 

 rooms, museum, gallerj' of paintings and statuary, laboratory, &c., and the national col- 

 lections are transferred to it from the Patent Office. Works on ethnology, antiquities, 

 palgeontology, &c., have been published by the Institute, and a serial work is in progress. 



