170 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



advice and instructions for tlie observation of the terrestrial lines of the 

 solar spectrum, and for observations of the zodiacal light (for which the 

 situation is particularly favourable) and for other desirable inquiries have 

 been sent to him ; and Lieutenant Herschel is taking out spectroscopes, 

 prisms, actinometers, and other suitable instruments which the Society 

 has provided for his use. 



The Society have been already apprised of the desire of the Government 

 of Mauritius to establish in that colony a j\Iagnetical Observatory, working 

 with the instruments and adopting the methods of discussing the results 

 as practised at Kew. Early in the Session a communication was received 

 from the Colonial Office, conveying the Earl of Carnarvon's request for the 

 opinion of the Royal Society regarding the instruments to be employed in, 

 and the plans for the building of, a new observatory, which should be both 

 magnetical and meteorological. After fall communication and discussion 

 with Mr. Meldrum, Director of the Mauritius Observatory, who had 

 arrived in England, a reply was returned to the Colonial Office particu- 

 larizing the remaining instruments still required for the complete equip- 

 ment of such an observatory, together with plans for the buildings and 

 estimates for the whole, submitted by Mr. Meldrum, and approved b.y 

 the President and Council. The instruments have been prepared, verified, 

 and practised with by Mr. Meldrum, at Kew, and are ready to proceed to 

 their destination. 



The self-recording magnetical instruments prepared and verified at the 

 Kew Observatory by the request of the Government of Victoria have been 

 forwarded to their destination, and are now at work at Melbourne under 

 the superintendence of Mr. Ellery. An application received in the course 

 of the present year from the same colony for self-recording meteorological 

 instruments on the pattern of those at Kew has been a|ready complied 

 with in part, and will be so fully as soon as the present urgent demands 

 for the British Land IMeteorological Observatories shall have been supplied. 



Since the information conveyed in my last year's Address respecting the 

 Magnetical Observatory at Bombay, Mr. Chambers's application for self- 

 recording instruments, similar to those at Kew, has been received at the India 

 Office, accompanied by the approval and recommendation of the Bombay 

 Government. Happening to arrive about the time when Lord Cranbourne 

 had referred the general subject of the Astronomical Observatories in 

 India to the Astronomer Royal, the Magnetical Observatory at Bombay 

 was included in the reference, the distinction between astronomical and 

 magnetical observatories not being perhaps very clearly understood. Mr. 

 Chambers's application for efficient instruments seems, however, to have 

 dropped out of consideration, and (to use an ordinary term) was "shelved." 

 A renewal of the application made through Sir Bartie Frere, the Governor 

 of Bombay, caused a second reference to the Astronomer Royal, from 



