468 



we are conversant are adequate for the purpose ; and I may indicate 

 Vancouver Island and Newfoundland as colonies well- suited for esta- 

 blishments of the same nature as those of which the efficiency has 

 been proved." 



As regards the instrumental means to be employed, the Com- 

 mittee believe that the consideration of the subject would be more 

 fitly undertaken by the Royal Society, who will probably think it 

 right to appoint a special Committee, as was done on the former 

 occasion, to consider it maturely, and to report upon it. Well as in 

 general the instruments employed in the British Colonial Obser- 

 vatories have performed, it may be desirable to consider whether 

 they could not be improved, by diminishing considerably the size of 

 the magnetic bars employed. Small bars indicate more certainly 

 the rapid magnetic changes ; they may be hardened more perfectly, 

 and therefore vary less in their magnetic condition with changes of 

 temperature ; they admit of more perfect protection from the effects 

 of disturbing aerial currents ; and, finally, the instruments may be 

 constructed at less expense, and may be grouped together in a 

 smaller and less costly building. 



The joint Committee therefore have finally agreed to the follow- 

 ing resolutions, which they submit for approval to their respective 

 appointing bodies : 



1 . That it is highly desirable that a series of Magnetical and Me- 

 teorological observations, on the same plan as those which have been 

 already carried on in the Colonial Observatories for that purpose, 

 under the direction of Her Majesty's Board of Ordnance, be obtained, 

 to extend over a period of not more than five years, at the following 

 stations : 



1. Vancouver Island. 



2. Newfoundland. 



3. The Falkland Isles. 



4. Pekin, or some near adjacent station. 



2. That an application be made to Her Majesty's Government, to 

 obtain the establishment of observatories at these stations for the 

 above-mentioned term, on a personal and material footing, and 

 under the same superintendence as in the observatories (now discon- 

 tinued) at Toronto, St. Helena, and Van Diemen Island. 



3. That the observations at the observatories now recommended, 



