xxxviii REPORT — 1866. 



mittee being authorized to discuss and make the necessary arrangements 

 with the Board of Trade, should any proposal be made. 



The Committee are also desii-ous of bringing under the consideration of 

 the Council, the expediency of proceeding in the formation of a memoir on 

 the periodic and non-periodic variations of the temperatm-e at Kcw, as a nor- 

 mal station of British meteorology. Similar works have for some years past 

 occupied the attention of the most eminent amongst the continental meteo- 

 rologists as being in fact the foundation of all scientijic knowledge of the 

 climatology of their respective countries. A memoir on the periodic and non- 

 periodic variations of the temperature at the magnetical and meteorological 

 observatory at Toronto in Canada has been printed in the Philosophical 

 Transactions for 1853, but no such work has yet been systematically under- 

 taken at Kew, although it is quite in accordance vrith the objects for which 

 the Observatory was instituted, in familiarizing British meteorologists with 

 a system of tabulation they have hitherto unduly neglected. DaUy photo- 

 grams taken from the thermograph constructed under Mr. Stewart's direction 

 will supply in the most unexceptionable manner the observational basis on 

 which the memoir would be founded. 



To obtain such photograms would constitute a very small addition to the 

 duties of the assistant by whom the daily photograms of the magnetical in- 

 struments are taken. The tabulation from the daily photograms of the tem- 

 perature would be the only increase of any moment to the ordinary present 

 work of the observatory, and would require, possibly, the part services of an 

 additional young assistant. 



The tabulation would supply twenty-four equidistant entries in every 

 solar day. The tables containing these entries, together with the Photo- 

 grams, after careful inspection by a proper auth&rity, would be preserved for 

 subsequent use. Five or, at most, six years would constitute quite a sufficient 

 basis for the determination of the periodic variations forming the first part 

 of the proposed work, and would require about a couple of months of super- 

 intending care on the part of the person who might be director of the Obser- 

 vatory, when the observations of the five or six years should have accumu- 

 lated. 



Nothing more than ordinary clerk's work under such general superintend- 

 ence would be required. 



Should the Board of Trade be disposed to avail itself of the suggestion 

 which has been made to them in respect to the Kew Obsei-vatory, the publi- 

 cation which has been suggested would become one of its first important 

 duties. 



J. P. Gassiot, 



Chairman. 

 Kew Observatory, August 17, 1866. 



