RKPORT— 1839. 173 



tional assistant to the Cape Observatory at a liberal and suffici- 

 ent salary, and is already on his voyage thither to take on him- 

 self the duties of his office. 



2nd. That Jones's mural circle, hitherto used at Greenwich, 

 has been despatched by the orders of the Lords Commissioners 

 of the Admiralty to supply the place of the defective one in use 

 up to that time at the Cape, and is already probably arrived 

 there, — an improvement of essential importance, the Greenwich 

 instrument having been shown, by many years' trial in the hands 

 of Messrs. Pond and Airy, to be of the highest excellence. The 

 liberality of Mr. Airy in resigning this noble instrument to his 

 brother astronomer cannot, in your Committee's opinion, be too 

 highly estimated. 



3rd. That for the purpose of enabling Mr. Maclear, the di- 

 rector of the Cape Observatory, to prosecute with effect the re- 

 measurement of Lacaille's arc of the meridian at the Cape, the 

 Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have procured from the 

 Board of Ordnance the use of Colonel Colby's excellent com- 

 pensation-measuring bars, the same which have been employed 

 by him in the measurement of the Irish base, which are now 

 actually on their voyage to perform a similar office at the Cape. 



4th. That the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have, in 

 pursuance of the same object, applied for and obtained the use 

 of an excellent theodolite, the property of the Royal Astrono- 

 mical Society, and by them liberally granted for the purpose of 

 remeasuring Lacaille's triangles. 



On the subject of a resolution adopted by the Meeting of the 

 British Association at Newcastle, in August 1838, to the fol- 

 lowing effect : — 



*' That Sir J. Herschel be requested to superintend the Re- 

 duction of Meteorological Observations made, agreeably to his 

 recommendation, at the Equinoxes and Solstices, and that 100/. 

 be placed at his disposal for that purpose." 



Sir J. Herschel reports, — That he has, within the course of 

 the year elapsed since the last Meeting of the Association, re- 

 ceived several series of observations from distant stations, com- 

 pleting wholly or in part the series before transmitted from 

 those stations ; but that several are still deficient, which, how- 

 ever, must now be considered either as irrecoverably lost, or as 

 never having been made. That, partly owing to the compara- 

 tive inutility of reducing incomplete series, and partly to the 

 pressure of other business, especially to that arising from the 

 Magnetic Expedition and observatories, which will form the sub- 

 ject of a distinct report, he has been prevented hitherto from 



