XXXV1 REPORT—1863. 
portance should be attached to the cooperation and prestige of the Kew Obser- 
vatory. 
«TT have the honour to be, 
“ec Sir, 
« Your obedient Servant, 
(Signed) * Rogr. FrrzRoy.” 
“ Balfour Stewart, Esq., F._RS., 
“ Superintending Kew Observatory.” 
In compliance with the request of this letter, telegrams were regularly 
furnished up to the end of May; but at that date the Superintendent received 
another letter from the Admiral, thanking the Observatory for the regularity 
and accuracy of its telegrams, but mentioning that, in consequence of two 
additional Foreign Stations being added to his list, there would not be space 
available for Kew, which really gave nearly the same indications as London. 
In consequence of this, telegrams were discontinued after the end of May. 
The self-recording Electrometer of Prof. W. Thomson continues in con- 
stant operation. 
The arrangements at the Observatory for testing Sextants remain as 
before without alteration, but it has been thought advisable to reduce the 
verification-fee from 5s, to 2s. 6d. for ordinary instruments, leaving that for 
an extremely accurate verification of a superior instrument the same as 
before. 
Eleven sextants and one altitude and azimuth instrument have been yeri- 
fied at Kew since the last Meeting of the British Association. 
The Chairman has procured a Spectroscope affording very great angular 
separation, which remains at Kew, and he has also ordered a Heliostat from 
Paris ; by those means it is hoped that the minutiz of the solar spectrum may 
soon be capable of being examined with great facility. 
The solar spots are now regularly observed at Kew, after the method of 
Dr. Schwabe, of Dessau, who has been communicated with, and will be 
written to from time to time, in order to ensure that both observers pursue 
exactly the same method of observation. 
It will be remembered that in the Report of the Committee at the Cam- 
bridge Meeting, it was stated that Mr. De la Rue had taken 177 photographs 
of the sun, and that the number of available days from February 7 to 
September 12, 1862, was 124. The Kew Heliograph was worked at Cranford 
up to February 7 , 1863, and photographs were procured on 42 other days 
between Sept. 12, 1862, and February 7, 1863, making 166 working days in 
the whole year. The series of negatives are now in course of measurement 
and reduction by Dr. Von Bose ; the micrometer employed is the same as that 
constructed for and used in the measurements of the eclipse-pictures obtained 
in Spain in 1860, a detailed description of which instrument is given in Mr, 
De la Rue’s paper in the Phil. Trans. vol. clii. pp. 373 to 380. 
Of the 1862-1863 series, the measurements are finished up to the end of 
June, and the reductions to the end of April 1862; both will be completed at 
the end of this year. 
In February of the present year the Heliograph was removed from Cranford 
to the Kew Observatory, and erected again in the dome. A new and com- 
modious photographic-room has been built on the roof of the Observatory, 
close to the dome, and has been fitted up with the requirements necessary for 
the successful prosecution of astronomical photography. The expense of this 
room has been defrayed out of the sum of £100 granted for that object at the 
