72 PROCEEDINGS OP SECTION A. 



time they were written ; they would however probably be found 

 in the Sydney Morning Herald. 



In the Royal Astronomical Society's Notices I find three 

 contributions — 



1. — Remarks on the Great Comet of 1843. 



2. — Observations made at Parramatta during the Solar 

 Eclipse, February 1, 1851. 



3.— Observations made at Sydney dui'ing the Solar Eclipse, 

 March 26, 1857. 

 But Mr. Clarke was not content to work single-handed, he felt 

 that a storm must be viewed from more than one point if he 

 wanted to see it properly, and therefore meteorological observa- 

 tories were established at liis own expense at Castle Hill, near 

 Parramatta, in February, 1842, and kept up to September, 1844; 

 at Dooral, near Parramatta, in November, 1841, and kept up to 

 April, 1846 ; at Campbelltown, in November, 1845, and kept up 

 to November, 1847 ; also, at Naas Valley, near Queanbeyan, in 

 November, 1843, and kept up to June, 1847. Returns were 

 regularly forwarded to Mr. Clarke and are now in the Sydney 

 Observatory in manuscript, only the I'ainfalls have been published. 

 In 1852 also, Mr. Clarke induced the late Mr. Boucher, B.A., of 

 Bukelong, Bombala, to keep a meteorological record, and that 

 record was kept continuously until the time of Mr. Boucher's 

 death in 1885. The record of rain prior to 1858 was made 

 with a raingauge which Mr. Boucher thought not satisfactory 

 and he would not give a copy of them. The record in the Obser- 

 vatory given at my request begins in 1858. Mr. Clarke kept his 

 own record most carefully from the time of his arrival in the 

 colony in 1839 until 1857 ; at first, at Parramatta, from 1839 to 

 1847 ; and subsequently at St. Leonards, North Shore, Sydney. He 

 took particular interest in the thunderstorms at Parramatta, and 

 worked out their life history if I may so speak, which he detailed 

 in a series of valuable letters to the Sydney Morning Herald ; 

 later he turned his attention to the storms on the coast and 

 studied them most carefully, recognising their cyclonic character 

 as far back as 1848. In Meteorology as in all that he did, Mr. 

 Clarke was a most indefatigable worker and painstaking investi- 

 gator, and it is very much to be regretted that in those days 

 there was no Scientific Society to receive and publish such work, 

 and hence it was giveii to the daily paj)er, and is therefore not 

 so accessible as we could wish. 



Mr. Clarke was called away from his labours before he had 

 time to carry out his intention of putting all this work into a 

 book and making it generally available. All through there is 

 evidence that every opportunity was seized to compare his 

 instruments with standards in ships of the Navy commissioned for 

 surveys and others, and an amount of labour was given to inves- 

 tigations in reference to the temperature and pressure of the 



