462 



Your Committee, looking at this long catalogue of distinct and 

 positive conclusions already obtained, feel themselves fully borne out 

 in considering that the operation in a scientific point of view has 

 proved so far eminently remunerative and successful, and that its 

 results have fully equalled in importance and value, as real accessions 

 to our knowledge, any anticipations which could reasonably have 

 been formed at the commencement of the inquiry. 



Having satisfied themselves of the great and important value of the 

 results already obtained, independent of the dormant interest as 

 respects future discussion which the mass of observations accumulated 

 continues to possess, and which it remains for future theoretical com- 

 binations to elicit, your Committee next turned their attention to 

 the question, whether and to what extent the maintenance of some 

 or all of the old Colonial observatories, or the establishment of new 

 ones for a limited term might be expected, first to give additional 

 certainty and precision to the determinations already obtained, and 

 secondly, to elucidate points imperfectly made out, and more espe- 

 cially geographical relations which determine the greater or less 

 amount of discordance between the epochal hours of the regular and 

 irregular diurnal changes relations which no doubt involve the 

 causes of the irregular fluctuations themselves (causes at present 

 involved in the greatest obscurity),- and to obtain indications of the 

 points in the earth's surface at which the forces producing them 

 originate. 



As regards the general question as to the desirableness of some 

 continuation of the observations, it seems hardly to be referred to 

 our consideration as a Committee the resolutions came to both by 

 the British Association and by the Council of the Royal Society, in 

 the appointment of their respective Committees of cooperation, in- 

 dicating an opinion already conclusively formed on the part of both 

 bodies to that effect. They have felt it due to themselves, however, 

 to come to an independent conclusion on that point, and having done 

 so with perfect unanimity, on the grounds already adduced, and the 

 expectations for the future xvhich those grounds justify, they next 

 address themselves to the consideration of the two points above in- 

 dicated, and to the important questions first, whether to recommend 

 the continuance or resumption of the establishments at the former 



