50 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



stitutions of our country. Mr. Gassiot has transferred to the Eoyal 

 Society, in Trust, certain securities, producing a net income of .£500 

 per annum, towards the cost of carrying on and continuing magnetical 

 and meteorological observations with self-recording instruments, and any 

 other physical investigations that may from time to time be found practi- 

 cable and desirable, in the present building at Kew belonging to Her 

 Majesty's Government ; or in the event of the Government at any time 

 declining to continue to place that building at the disposition of the Eoyal 

 Society, then in any other suitable building which the Council of the 

 Eoyal Society may determine. It is further provided that, " in the event 

 of the Eoyal Society at any future time declining to continue such an 

 observatory, either, as at present, at Kew or elsewhere, the securities pro- 

 ducing the income shall be transferred to another corporation for educa- 

 tional purposes." The cost of the meteorological observations by self-re- 

 cording instruments at Kew is at present defrayed from public funds 

 placed at the disposal of a Committee nominated, at the request of Her 

 Majesty's Government, by our President and Council, and consisting of 

 Fellows of the Society serving gratuitously. Carrying out Mr. Gassiot's 

 views, the Council of the Eoyal Society has formed the same individuals 

 into a " Kew Committee," also serving gratuitously, and having the proceeds 

 of the Gassiot Fund at their disposal, and applying them to the maintenance 

 of magnetical observations by self-recording instruments primarily ; and 

 secondarily, as far as may be practicable, to aiding any other suitable 

 physical investigations for which it may be possible to find space and 

 adequate supervision. 



Among the first duties which have required the attention of the Kew 

 Committee has been the agreeable one of responding to an application made 

 to them by Dr. Jelinek, Director of the Central- Anstalt fiir Meteorologie und 

 Erdmagnetismus, to procure for that establishment a set of self-recording 

 magnetographs similar to those at Kew. The request has been of course 

 complied with; and it is hoped that the apparatus will be ready for 

 transmission to Vienna in March next, being the time named by Dr. 

 Jelinek as that at which the new building in course of erection in that 

 city is expected to be completed. The Committee has also been apprised 

 by a letter (dated in June last) from Mr. Stone, Astronomer Eoyal at 

 the Cape of Good Hope, that he had at that date applied to the Admiralty 

 (being the Department of Her Majesty's Government under which the Cape 

 Observatory is placed) for a set of magnetographs, similar to those at Kew, 

 to bo employed at the Cape. The Kew Committee hold themselves in readi- 

 ness to supply the desired apparatus when they may receive directions 

 to that effect from the Admiralty ; such directions, however, have not 

 yet been received. If Mr. Stone's request is granted, the Cape Observa- 

 tory will be the third in the British Colonial Dominions employing such 

 instruments, the other two being the Colaba Observatory, under Mr. 

 Chambers, at Bombay (for which our thanks are due to Sir Stafford North- 



