REPORT OF THE COUNCIL. XWlll 



observation of the Declinometer, made in the winter of last year at Fort 

 Carlton on the Saskatchewan, in which he has himself taken the principal 

 part. I should propose to recommend as his Assistant, either at Vancouver 

 Island or at Pekin, Lieut. Maunsell of the Royal Artillery, who, being an 

 Undergraduate at Trinity College, Dublin, obtained his Commission two years 

 since by taking a high place in the competitive examination, and is now about 

 to obtain leave of absence to take his degree at Trinity College. My personal 

 knowledge of this Officer is but slight, but it leads me to regard him as a 

 person of much promise in scientific respects. He has placed his services 

 (always presuming the approval of His Royal Highness the Commander-in- 

 Chief) at my disposal for any part of the globe at which Magnetic Obser- 

 vations may be required. At remote stations, such as Vancouver Island or 

 Pekin, a second officer is highly expedient in the event of casualties, as well 

 as for the Survey connected with the Observatory, for which the detachment 

 will be well provided with instruments, whether such Survey be to be pro- 

 secuted by sea or land. The Assistants at Kew, who are carrying on the 

 work of the regular photographic Magnetic Observatory there, are fully com- 

 petent, and would be quite ready to give the Officers and Non-Commissioned 

 Officers the necessary instructions in manipulation, &c. ; and I know of no 

 reason why the 'materiel' and 'personnel' of an Observatory destined 

 either for Vancouver Island or Pekin, should not be ready to proceed to their 

 destination in the autumn of 1859. 



" The charge which would subsequently devolve upon me, would be simply 

 that of receiving and properly preserving the monthly returns containing 

 duplicates of the photographic traces, and the tabulated abstracts prepared 

 from them corresponding to every hour or every half-hour as might be deemed 

 preferable. The arrangements which Mr. Welsh has prepared for tabulating 

 from the traces, seem to leave nothing to be desired. There is nothing 

 onerous in this charge, which would require only suitable presses for the 

 arrangement of the papers, and the superintendence of a Non-Commissioned 

 Officer acting as a Clerk under my directions. The quarterly or half-yearly 

 applications from the Observatory for supplies of chemicals, &c, would be 

 met through the instrumentality of the Director of the Kew Observatory, 

 who is constantly requiring supplies of the same nature for the apparatus 

 there. When the tabulated abstracts of the first year had been received at 

 Woolwich complete, they might be passed through the same process of 

 analysis for the determination of the laws of the disturbances which has been 

 exemplified in the Observations of the Colonial Observatories. This has 

 been worked into such a thorough system, that it would proceed with only 

 the most general superintendence on my part, and would also, I consider, 

 occasion no serious interruption in what would at that time be the regular 

 and staple business of the Office, i. e. the reduction and coordination of the 

 Naval Magnetic Surveys. The second and third years' abstracts might be simi- 

 larly treated as they arrived; and lam inclined to think that I may, without 

 too much presumption, look forward, please God, to the probability of my 

 being myself able to give such a provisional report of the results as might be 

 justified by the first three years of observation. I might also look forward, but 

 of course with less confidence, to being able to derive the laws of the secular 

 changes of the three elements from the absolute determinations at the expira- 

 tion of the six years (if then alive and in tolerable health), which, from the 

 long experience which I have had in such investigations, would be far easier 

 to me than it could well be to any other person. But whatever might be the 

 measure of my own competency in future years, the photographic traces of 

 the tabulated abstracts, carefully preserved and arranged, would be transferred, 



J 859. c 



