302 REPORT—1858. 
as was done on the former occasion, to consider it maturely, and to report 
upon it. Well as, in general, the instruments employed in the British colonial 
observatories have performed, it may be desirable to consider whether they 
could not be improved, by diminishing considerably the size of the magnetic 
bars employed. Small bars indicate more certainly the rapid magnetic 
changes; they may be hardened more perfectly, and therefore vary less in 
their magnetic condition with changes of temperature ; they admit of more 
perfect protection from the effects of disturbing aérial currents; and finally, 
the instruments may be constructed at less expense, and may be grouped 
together in a smaller and less costly building. 
The joint committee therefore have finally agreed to the following resolu- 
tions, which they submit for approval to their respective appointing bodies :— 
1. That it is highly desirable that a series of magnetical and meteorological 
observations, on the same plan as those which have been already carried on 
in the colonial observatories for that purpose, under the direction of H.M. 
Board of Ordnance, be obtained, to extend over a period of not more than 
five years, at the following stations :— 
1. Vancouver Island. 
2. Newfoundland. 
3. The Falkland Isles. 
4. Pekin, or some near adjacent station. 
2. That an application be made to her Majesty’s Government, to obtain 
the establishment of observatories at these stations for the above-mentioned 
term, on a personal and material footing, and under the same superintendence, 
as in the observatories (now discontinued) at Toronto, St. Helena, and Van 
Diemen Island. 
3. That the observations at the observatories now recommended should be 
comparable with and in continuation of those made at the last-named obser- 
vatories, including four days of term-observations annually. 
4. That provision be also requested at the hands of Her Majesty’s Govern- 
ment, for the execution, within the period embraced by the observations, of 
magnetic surveys in the districts immediately adjacent to those stations—viz. 
of the whole of Vancouver Island and the shores of the strait separating 
it from the main land, of the Falkland Isles, and of the immediate neigh- 
bourhood of the Chinese observatory (if practicable) wherever situated—on 
the plan of the surveys already executed in the British possessions in North 
America and in the Indian Archipelago. 
5. That a sum of £350 per annum, during the continuance of the obser- 
vations, be placed by Government at the disposal of the General Superin- 
tendent, for the purpose of procuring a special and scientific verification and 
exact correspondence of the magnetical and meteorological instruments, both 
of those which shall be furnished to the several observatories and of those 
which, during the continuance of the observations for the period in question, 
shall be brought into comparison with them either at Foreign or Colonial 
stations. 
6. That the printing of the observations 72 eatenso be discontinued, but 
that provision be made for their printing in abstract, with discussion, but that 
the term-observations, and those to be made on the occurrence of magnetic 
storins, be still printed 7% eatenso; and that the registry of the observations 
be made in triplicate—one copy to be preserved in the office of the General 
Superintendent, one to be presented to the Royal Society, and one to the 
Royal Observatory at Greenwich, for conservation and future reference. 
7. That measures be adopted for taking advantage of whatever disposition 
may exist ont he part of our Colonial Governments to establish observatories 
i 
