METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATORIES. 157 



special circumstances, but in principle the same, though not always 

 comprising so many subjects of research as pursued in our own Eoyal 

 Observatory. 



It must not, however, be imagined that I have enumerated all the 

 various researches now going on there — work which is forming a firm 

 foundation for the wider meteorology of the future. 



KEW OBSERVATORY. 



Greenwich is, however, not the only observatory in the vicinity of 

 London. The other is the establish uient of the Kew Observatory, 

 which, although known by that name, is really to be found in the Old 

 Deer Park at Eichmond, on a small eminence of made ground sur- 

 rounded by flat park land and situated a few hundred yards south of 

 the river Thames. The site was occupied during many centuries by an 

 old Carthusian monastery, which was suppressed in 1541. The present 

 building dates from about 1769, when George III erected it, after the 

 designs of Sir William Chambers, to whom we owe also our Somerset 

 House. 



The building then became known by the name of the King's Observ- 

 atory at Kew, though sometimes more correctly called the Royal 

 Observatory at Richmond. George III provided the establishment 

 with the best clocks and watches that could be obtained at the time, 

 and he often visited the place, while his children frequently attended 

 lectures given there. Our esteemed past president, Mr. R. H. Scott, 

 was from 1871 to 1876 its honorary secretary, and from his interesting 

 "History of the Kew Observatory" 1 I have gleaned the foregoing 

 particulars. 



About the year 1840 the Government came to the decision that the 

 establishment should be abolished as an astronomical observatory, and 

 the building was finally handed over to the British Association in 1842. 

 The first resolution of the general committee of that body at the Man- 

 chester meeting in June of that year, with reference to their new 

 acquisition, was "that Professor Wheatstone, Professor Daniell, and 

 Mr. Snow Harris be a committee for constructing a self-recording 

 meteorological apparatus to be employed in the building at Kew. 7 ' 



In the next year the name of Mr. (afterwards Sir Francis) Ronalds, 

 F. R. S., first appeared in connection with the establishment. At the 

 meeting of the British Association at Cambridge in 1845 a conference 

 was held in connection with a committee which had been appointed to 

 "conduct the cooperation of the British Association in the system of 

 simultaneous magnetical and meteorological observations." This con- 

 ference, among its recommendations, expressed the wish " that it is 

 very highly important that self-recording meteorological instruments 

 should be improved to such a degree as to enable a considerable portion 



1 Proceedings of the Royal Society, Vol. XXXIX, page 37. 



