178 SIR GEORGE DARWIN 



Scientific Committees. 



George served for many years on the Solar 

 Physics Committee and on the Meteorological 

 Council. With regard to the latter, Sir Napier 

 Shaw has at my request given me his impressions^ : 



It was in February 1885, upon the retire- 

 ment of Warren De la Rue, that your brother 

 George, by appointment of the Royal Society, 

 joined the governing body of the Meteorological 

 Office, at that time the Meteorological Council. 

 He remained a member until the end of the 

 Council in 1905, and thereafter, until his death, 

 he was one of the two nominees of the Royal 

 Society upon the Meteorological Committee, 

 the new body which was appointed by the 

 Treasury to take over the control of the 

 administration of the Office. . . . 



The Commissioners, collectively known as 

 the Meteorological Council, were a remarkably 

 distinguished body of Fellows of the Royal 

 Society, and when Darwin took the place of 

 De la Rue, the members were men subse- 

 quently famous, as Sir Richard Strachey, 

 Sir William Wharton, Sir George Stokes, Sir 

 Francis Galton, Sir George Darwin, with E. J. 

 Stone, a former Astronomer Royal for the 

 Cape 



I do not think that Darwin addressed him- 

 self spontaneously to meteorological problems, 

 but he was always ready to help. He was 

 very regular in his attendance at Council, and 

 the minutes show that after Stokes retired, all 

 questions involving physical measurement or 



* As here given they are abbreviated. 



