276 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



this additional observatory on the one hand, and on the other of contribu- 

 ting to the dissemination of a taste for scientific pursuits among a large 

 class of our gentry, that the Council of the Royal Society thought it right 

 to allot last year from the parliamentary grant annually placed at their 

 disposal, a sum sufficient to defray half the cost of a set of magnetical in- 

 struments for Stonyhurst. 



This is the fortieth year since Mr. Schwabe began at Dessau his series 

 of observations on the Solar spots, which he has continued without inter- 

 mission from 1826 to the present time. Impressed with the extreme de- 

 sirableness of continuing beyond the limits of a single life a series already 

 so valuable, the Committee of the Kew Observatory concerted with Mr. 

 Schwabe for the commencemxCnt last year at Kew of a series which should 

 run parallel with his for a time, and which afterwards, when the identity 

 or proximate identity of the two should have been established, might, it 

 was hoped, be prolonged indefinitely through future years. Mr.Schwabe's 

 observations and those at Kew have accordingly been proceeding con- 

 temporaneously, and the comparison between their results during the ten 

 months from January to October 1866 inclusive, gives reason to believe 

 that the object will be satisfactorily attained. The number of new groups 

 of spots observed at the two stations in the ten months is identical, and 

 very similar, if not always quite identical, in each single month ; although, 

 as might have been expected from the difference between the continental 

 and insular climates, the number of days of observation at Kew is consider- 

 ably less than at Dessau. 



The results of the first year's experiments with the pendulums which 

 were noticed in my last year's Address as having been supplied to the 

 Indian Trigonometrical Survey, have been received from Colonel "Walker, 

 R.A., F.R.S., Superintendent of the Survey. They were made by Captain 

 Basevi at several stations where the triangulation is now proceeding. In a 

 letter to myself accompanying them, dated August 30 of the present year. 

 Colonel Walker says, Already these experiments are beginning to throw 

 light on the subject of Himalayan attraction ; for the observations clearly 

 show that the force of gravity is less than it should be theoretically at 

 the stations in the vicinity of the Himalayas, and that the diiference between 

 theory and practice diminishes the further the station is removed from the 

 Himalayas. This seems a remarkable confirmation of the Astronomer 

 Royal's opinion, that the strata of the earth below mountains are less 

 dense than the strata below plains and the bed of the sea. Combining 

 these observations with those which were used by Mr. Baily, including, 



I believe, all your own, the value of the ellipticity will be A_.'' The 

 general result obtained from the thirteen stations of my equatorial and 

 arctic voyages (1821-1823) was That obtained by Mr. Baily from 



