411 



receive, and an authorized connexion with a head-quarter esta- 

 blishment whence they may derive instruction and guidance. 



" The cost of one of the Ordnance Observatories (including 56100 

 a year for incidentals of all kinds) is 36392 a year, exclusive of pub- 

 lication. It may be assumed that five years of hourly observation 

 is a sufficient time of continuance for obtaining in any particular 

 colony the mean values of the magnetical and meteorological ele- 

 ments, and their diurnal, annual, and secular variations, as well as 

 the peculiarities of climate bearing on the health and industrial oc- 

 cupations of man. If the observations were printed in full detail 

 for the five years, they would occupy two quarto volumes ; but if it 

 were thought sufficient hereafter that duplicate or triplicate manu- 

 script copies should be deposited in different public libraries, and 

 that publication should be confined to abstracts and an analysis, the 

 cost of the publication would form but a small addition. 



" The colonies of Ceylon, New Brunswick, Bermuda, and New- 

 foundland are in the described case ; their respective Governors are 

 recommending the establishment of Magnetical and Meteorological 

 Observatories in them ; competent directors are on the spot [this 

 was written in 1845] ; and they are all Artillery stations." 



To the four stations thus named may be now added Mauritius and 

 Demerara, as from both those Colonies, strong and repeated applica- 

 tions to the same effect have been sent through their respective Go- 

 vernors to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Both these Colo- 

 nies have offered to bear a portion of the expense of the proposed esta- 

 blishments ; and have earnestly solicited to be placed in connexion 

 with a head-quarter establishment, from which they might receive 

 properly constructed instruments, with instructions and guidance in 

 their use. Can it be said that we perform our duty as a mother- 

 country when we put such applications on the shelf? whilst, in the 

 interests of science, it would be difficult to estimate too highly the 

 value of such institutions, in forming good observers, who might 

 subsequently extend their activity over a wider range, in affording 

 to travelling observers the opportunity of testing and correcting their 

 instruments, as well as keeping up and perfecting their skill in ob- 

 servation, and in contributing to arouse, to nourish, and to extend 

 to other parts of natural knowledge, that desire for the greatest pos- 



VOL. VIII. 2 I 



