216 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 



Fortunately the special treatment suggested has been very successful, and Mr. Shaw 

 was able to attend the meeting of this Committee on July 4, though he is still in 

 the doctor's hands. 



International. 



The International Scientific Summary has been continued as below, by the help 

 of a supplement from the Royal Society, to counteract the effects of the fall in 

 the franc. 



The Prague meeting of the Int. Geoph. and Geod. Union has been fixed for 

 September 1-10. The Chairman and Secretary of this Committee have been 

 nominated as delegates. 



Instrumental. 



(Chiefly from notes by Mr, J. J. Shaw.) 



Mr. Shaw completed the repairs to the Christmas Island machine before leaving 

 England ; it is now at Colombo, and has been purchased by the Ceylon 

 Government. 



As foreshadowed in the last Report, the original Milne-Shaw instrument, set up 

 at Bidston in 1914, July 16, and recently replaced by another with larger magnifica- 

 tion, has now been set up at Oxford as a N.S. component. It has the same 

 magnification as the existing E.VV. component, and there is a convenience in having 

 the two instruments alike in this respect. When the new basement at present under 

 construction at the University Observatory is completed, the two components will 

 be mounted on the same pier. At present they are mounted on the two separate 

 piers erected in the basement of the Clarendon Laboratory by Mr. C. V. Boys, F.R.S., 

 for his Cavendish experiment in the years 1891-1895. (See Phil. Trans. 186 (1895), 

 A. pp. 1-72.). The use of this basement has been courteously allowed by Mr. James 

 Walker in the first instance (October 1918), and by Prof. Lindemann since his 

 appointment hi 1919. 



On April 11, 1927, a second instrument was sent to Copenhagen for installation in 

 Greenland. Earthquakes in the Arctic regions are occasionally recorded by European 

 instruments and others (for instance, the catalogue of epicentres 1913-0-1920-5, 

 published three years ago, contains ten epicentres with latitudes greater than 63°, of 

 which the most active is that of 72-0° N., 2-8° W., from which six shocks are recorded, 

 none of the other epicentres being credited with more than one) ; but it is suspected 

 that others escape detection, and a pair of components in Greenland will be very 

 valuable. 



The following note is contributed by the Superintendent of Kew Observatory : — 



' An event of some importance to British seismology, the transfer by the 

 Meteorological Office of the Galitzin seismographs fiom Eskdalemuir Observatory to 

 Kew Observatory, should perhaps have been mentioned in last year's Report. The 

 instruments, which were provided in 1910 by the generosity of Prof, (now Sir Arthur) 

 Schuster, were moved in October 1925. The pendulums were installed at Kew 

 Observatory on a massive concrete pillar in the old inagnel ograph room, accom- 

 modation for the photographic recording apparatus being provided in the room 

 formerly occupied by the Milne seismograph. The instruments have been in 

 continuous operation since the beginning of 1926. 



' The Observatory now supplies the Air Ministry with information regarding 

 important earthquakes for communication to the Press, and messages in the 

 international seismological code are sent out by the Meteorological Office with 

 telegrams of the daily weather service. At the beginning of 1927 the issue of a 

 monthly bulletin, to take the place of that issued previously from Eskdalemuir, was 

 inaugurated. Fuller details of the seismological records, including measurements of 

 microseisms, are being published in the Observatories' Yearbook of the Meteorological 

 Office.' 



Bulletins and Tables. 



The International Seismological Summaries for October to December 1922, and 

 the whole of 1923, have, been printed and distributed. The number for January- 

 March 1924 is passed for press, and the MS. for April- June 1924 is being read with 

 the original records. [It has been the custom, almost from the first, to treat such 

 MS. as printer's proof, so that very few corrections are needed after it is set in type.] 

 During the year the great earthquakes of 1923, September 1 and 2, in Japan, came 





