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REPORT OF THE KEW COMMITTEE. XXXV 
the United States, and 6 barometers and 6 thermometers for the Portuguese 
Government. 
Mr. Welsh is at present completing the Magnetic Survey of Scotland, for 
the expense of which £200 has been received by the Committee from the 
Admiralty. 
The Committee finding it desirable that the workshop of the Observatory 
should be furnished with a superior lathe and planing machine, authorized 
their Chairman to apply to the Council of the Royal Society for the sum of 
£150; this amount was immediately awarded from the Donation Fund, and 
a very superior lathe, by Whitworth, and a planing machine have been pur- 
chased at a cost of £149 7s. 
The present as well as the former Annual Reports of the Committee, show 
the practical scientific objects for which the Observatory has for so many 
years been used, and at no former period was it in so effective a state as at 
present ; the valuable tools that have (by the liberality of the Royal Society ) 
been placed in the workshop, enable Mr. Beckley to repair and make appa- 
ratus and instruments of the most complex and delicate construction; much 
of this work would otherwise have been sent to different workshops in the 
Metropolis, entailing not only great loss of time, but often a want of accu- 
racy in the construction: the value of such arrangements in the Observatory 
can be easily appreciated by scientific observers. 
On the 24th of last April, the Committee presented an estimate of the 
expenditure for the present year, a copy of which had been previously for- 
warded by the Chairman to the President, whose reply, addressed to General 
Sabine, the Committee now present as a part of their Annual Report. 
“ Trinity College, Dublin, December 7, 1857. 
“Dear Sapine,—I have received from Mr. Gassiot the Financial Report 
of the Kew Committee, which I hope may soon be laid before the Council. 
It appears from it that the expenditure of the Observatory is likely to increase 
with the increased activity of the establishment, while part of the income— 
that, namely, derived from the verification of meteorological instruments— 
will probably diminish in future years. 
*T am not sufficiently acquainted with the working of the Observatory to 
say, from my own knowledge, how far an augmentation of the existing staff 
is necessary. But if the Council should judge that it is—as stated in the 
Report of the Committee—they will have to consider from what external 
source provision may be made for the increased expenditure; for I presume 
that it will not be thought prudent, that the Association, with its fluctuating 
and uncertain income, should augment its grant beyond the present amount. 
“Upon this point I may remark, that the President and Council of the 
Royal Society have already evinced their sense of the value of the Observatory, 
by making a liberal grant to it for a special object ; and that it is therefore not 
improbable that they may be willing to contribute permanently to its support. 
Its objects are at least as clearly allied to those of the Royal Society, as to those 
of the British Association; and if it should be deemed that those objects 
have been in great measure attained, and that the establishment has proved 
itself deserving of permanent maintenance, it would seem expedient to place 
it on a more fixed basis than the present. 
“J will only add, that believing, as I do, that the Observatory has already 
done much, and is capable of doing more, for the advancement of physical 
science, I should deplore the restriction of its efficiency, by insufficient pecu- 
niary means, as a loss to science. 
' “Believe me, sincerely yours, 
“ To General Sabine, R.A., Se.” “H. Luoyp.” 
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