1869.] On the Building for the Melbourne Telescope. 



329 



come by the overland mail, and the ship carrying the telescope making 

 an unusually long passage. 



The principal or more delicate portions of the instrument came out in 

 good order : the specula are still in thin coats of varnish, and their 

 surfaces appear in perfect good order. Some of the large castings and 

 portions of the gearing had got rusted, but not to an injurious extent. 

 The piers were completed on New Year's morning, and form a magnificent 

 piece of masonry, the stone employed being the grey basalt, so common 

 here (called "blue stone "), in blocks from one to three tons in weight 

 each. The building we have finally decided upon is of stuccoed brickwork 

 80 feet long by 40 wide. Forty in length is taken up by the telescope-room, 

 which is covered by a ridged roof of iron travelling on rails on the walls, and 

 moves back on the other 40 feet of the building, leaving the telescope in the 

 open air. The back 40 feet is covered by a fixed roof lower than the moveable 

 one, and will contain a polishing- and engine-room, a capacious laboratory, 

 and an office for observer. The cost of piers, building, and roof will be 

 about £1700. The Government, with hard economy in all other direc- 

 tions, have still acted very liberally about this work ; and I only trust the 

 telescope itself will turn out all that is expected of it. The micrometer 

 and spectrum-apparatus have not arrived yet. 



Our magnetographs do their work smoothly and satisfactorily. The 

 photography has become a part of the routine of the Observatory now. I 

 have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the baro- and thermographs, 

 and we look for them every day, although I have had no advices of their 

 having been shipped. I suppose you will have seen Mr. Verdon long 

 before this reaches you. 



I remain, my dear Sir, 

 Major-General Sabine, Yours faithfully, 



Royal Society, London. Robert J. Ellery. 



March 11, 1869. 

 Lieut.-General SABINE, President, in the Chair. 



The following communications were read : — 



I. " Contributions to the Fossil Flora of North Greenland, being a 

 Description of the Plants collected by Mr. Edward Whymper 

 during the Summer of 1867." By Prof. Oswald Heer, of 

 Zurich. Communicated by Prof. G. G. Stokes, Sec. U.S. 

 (Abstract.) 



The author stated that the examination of the fossil plant-remains which 

 had been at various times brought to Europe from North Greenland by 

 M'Clintock, Inglefield, Colomb, and others, as well as by Mr. Olrik, 

 formerly Inspector of North Greenland, the results of which were pub- 



VOL. XVII. 2 B 



