Royal Society. 389 



James Hudson, AssistantSecretary and Librarian to the Royal Society. 

 Communicated by J. W. Lubbock, Esq. M.A., V.P. and Treas. R.S. 



Mr. Lubbock having found, from his examination of the meteoro- 

 logical observations made daily at the Royal Society, that they af- 

 forded no satisfactory result as to the daily variation of the barometer 

 in consequence of the too great length of the intervals between the 

 times of observation, the author undertook the task of making a 

 series of hourly observations for a period sufficiently extensive to 

 furnish preliminary data for explaining the anomalies of the baro- 

 metrical oscillations. The present paper contains these hourly ob- 

 servations, amounting to about 3000 in number, and made in the 

 months of April, May, June, and July, 1831, and in those of Janu- 

 ary and February of 1832. The standard barometer of the Society 

 has been observed for about 16 or 18 hours during the day, through 

 a period of 75 days ; and also at every hour, through the whole 

 twenty-four hours, for 30 days : the water barometer every hour, 

 day and night, for 15 days ; and the mountain barometer also every 

 hour, day and night, for the same period. The relative levels of the 

 surfaces of the fluids in the cisterns of each of these barometers, 

 were accurately determined by Mr. Bevan. The most .striking re- 

 sults afforded by these observations are exhibited by means of linear 

 representations in four drawings which accompany the paper. The 

 respective variations from each general mean, being referred, ac- 

 cording to a given scale, to the mean line, and their points of di- 

 stance from it, at each successive hour, being connected together bv 

 straight lines, the barometrical and thermometrical changes being 

 each referred to the same scale, exhibits the striking connexion that 

 exists between them. The comparison of the simultaneous move- 

 ments of the three barometers shows the general accordance of their 

 mean variations ; and the precession in time, by about an hour, 

 of the mean motions of the water barometer over those of the stand- 

 ard barometer ; and also the precession, by the same interval, of the 

 mean changes of this latter instrument over those of the mountain 

 barometer. The author concludes by announcing many objects he 

 has in view in the investigations in which he is at present engaged. 



12. " Note on the Tides in the Port of London," by J. W. Lub- 

 bock, Esq. M.A., V.P. and Treas. R.S. 



The author gives a comparative view of the predicted times of high 

 water deduced from Mr. Hulpit's tables. White's Ephemeris, and the 

 British Almanac, with the observations at the London Docks, from 

 data furnished to him by Mr. Stratford ; and also a comparison, by 

 Mr. Deacon, at the Londf)n and St. Katherine's Docks. 



13. " Researches in Physical Astronomy," by the same. 



In this Paper a method is given of developing the disturbing func- 

 tion, in which the coefficients of the inequalities corresponding to any 

 given order, are expressed in terms of the coefficients of the inferior 

 orders ; so that, for example, tiie coefficients of the terms in the dis- 

 turbing function, multiplied by the S(|uares of the eccentricities, are 

 given an.ilytically by means of the coedicients of those independent 

 of the cccenlricities, and of those niulliplied by their fust powers. As 



