THE STORY OF THE GARDENS 111 



marked by the Observatory, built for George III. 

 by Sir William Chambers, with a special view to 

 the transit of Venus observed by Cook and 

 Banks from Tahiti. When Kew Gardens were 

 taken under the wing of Parliament, the Royal 

 Society refused a free gift of this building ; but 

 it was kept going by subscriptions, then under 

 the auspices of the Board of Trade became 

 a Meteorological Station, with the important 

 function of testing instruments like barometers, 

 thermometers, and sextants, to be hall-marked 

 with the initials of Kew Observatory. But of 

 late years it proved not secluded enough for 

 this work, the electric currents induced by tram- 

 ways threatening its most delicate operations, so 

 that the magnetic branch was recently trans- 

 planted to the wilds of Dumfries, where also, 

 one hears, it had a narrow escape from inter- 

 ference in being housed in walls at first chosen 

 from an ironstone quarry. Other parts of the 

 work are now carried on at the new Physical 

 Laboratory in Bushy Park. 



A ha-ha fence cuts off Richmond Old Deer 

 Park, as it is called, from Kew Gardens, which 

 in all cover a space of some 250 acres. The wire 

 fence has gone that marked the now hardly valid 



