XXXV 



In December 1842, Sir Thomas Brisbane, Bart., President of the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh, with the advice of Professor J. D. 

 Forbes, engaged Mr. Welsh as an observer for his Magnetical and 

 Meteorological Observatory at Makerstoun, under Mr. John Allan 

 Broun, F.R.S., the Director, who, in his Report for 1845, says, 

 " I owe my best thanks to my principal assistant, Mr. John Welsh, 

 for the care and assiduity with which he assisted me on all occa- 

 sions, whether connected with the making or reducing of the ob- 

 servations The more difficult observations for the magnetic dip, 



and all the determinations of constants, were made by Mr. Welsh 

 and myself." 



In 1850, the period originally contemplated by Sir Thomas Bris- 

 bane for the duration of the Observatory being completed, Mr. Welsh 

 was anxious to obtain some other scientific appointment. To aid 

 him in the attainment of this object, Sir Thomas gave him a letter 

 of introduction to Colonel Sykes, F.R.S., at that time Chairman of 

 the Kew Committee of the British Association ; Mr. Broun also 

 wrote to Colonel Sykes, expressing his high opinion of Mr. Welsh's 

 scientific ability ; and accordingly, at the Edinburgh Meeting of the 

 British Association in 1850, the Kew Committee reported that they 

 had engaged Mr. Welsh to assist Mr. Ronalds, F.R.S., who had, 

 ever since the establishment of the Observatory, gratuitously under- 

 taken the office of Superintendent. From this period to within a 

 short time of his death, Mr. Welsh devoted himself to scientific 

 labour in that establishment, upholding and, year by year, increasing 

 the efficiency of a physical Observatory, which, without any pecu- 

 niary aid from Government, has, since its commencement, been 

 entirely supported by annual grants from the British Association, 

 assisted from time to time by donations from the Royal Society. 



In 1851, shortly after his appointment to the Kew Observatory, 

 Mr. Welsh presented to the Association an elaborate Report on the 

 performance of Mr.Ronalds's three Magnetographs ; and at the same 

 meeting (Ipswich) he described a Sliding Rule for Hygrometrical 

 Calculations, and one for converting the observed readings of the 

 Horizontal- and Vertical-force Magnetometers into variations of mag- 

 netic dip and total force ; both sliding rules being devised by himself. 



In the same year, the Committee, being impressed with the im- 

 portance of enabling scientific observers at home and abroad to 



c.2 



