ASTRONOMICAL AND METEOROLOGICAL WORKERS. 51 



it, and sent back to him letters of approval and tliankfulness, 

 wliilst others took their own way outside the Barrier reef, and 

 several are known to have been wrecked upon it. 



For the remainder of his life his devotion to the science of 

 Meteorology continued unaltered. During his residence at 

 Dunhered from 1832 to 1839, and at Tahlee, Port Stephens, to 

 1848, he kept his observatory in full work with the transit 

 and other instruments he had had with him on his voyage, 

 and kept regular registers of the barometer, shade thermometers, 

 the wet and dry bulbs, and much time was given to the amplitude 

 of the atmosphei'ic tide, or diurnal variation of air pressure in 

 conjunction with similar observations made by Mr. Dunlop at 

 the Parramatta Observatory — -who from sixteen days' hourly* 

 observations made the highest point of the barometer at 9'24fi.m., 

 and the lowest at 3'17 p.m., but who said that the night tide was 

 irregular. 



The first five years work at Tahlee was published in the 

 Tasmanian Journal, No. 6, a copy of which is in the Sydney 

 Observatory — with the remainder of the observation in MSS. — 

 where they have been deposited for reference by his son, the 

 Hon. P. G. King, of Sydney. 



During Sir Thomas Mitchell's explorations in the interior in 

 1835-6, Captain King, by arrangement with him, kept a careful 

 recoixl of his more than usually frequent barometer readings ; so 

 that it should be possible to find a corresponding value of the 

 pressure for any time or place at whicli Sir Thomas might have 

 read ofi" his. barometer in the interior ; the two barometers, 

 separated by some hundreds of miles, were wondei'fully accordant 

 in their movements. 



On one occasion when Captain King was working up the 

 results for the purpose of proving the elevation of Sir Thomas' 

 positions on a particular observation, made his camp 40 feet higher 

 than it ought to have been by the preceding and following 

 observations, what had otherwise shewn in a remarkable way the 

 gradual slope of the country, but on reference to his diaiy Sir 

 Thomas found that fearing a flood, he had pitched his camp on 

 that occasion on an elevation above the river bank which he was 

 following up. 



Amongst Captain King's papers are records of the determination 

 of latitudes and longitudes of Fort Macquarie by other observers : 

 Of Latitudes — 



Captain Flinders in 1795 and 1803, gives 33° 51' 46-6" 



De Freycinet in 1802 33 5121 



Malaspina, Point Bennilong or Fort ) qq p^l oq 

 Macquarie, 1793 ... ... J 



*These observations were taken hourly but only for eifrhteen out of the twenty-fonr, so 

 that Mr. Dunlop was not in a position to say what the ni^'ht tide was. The original obser- 

 vations are in one of his books now in the Sydney Observatory. 



