Report of the Kew Committee. 



317 



In compliance with, a request made by the Meteorological Council 

 to the Committee, Mr. Whipple visited Falmouth in May in order to 

 superintend the removal of the meteorological instruments from the 

 old Observatory to the new building recently erected near that town 

 by the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society ; he has since inspected 

 the instruments at the Aberdeen, Stonyhurst, and Glasgow Observa- 

 tories, and the Anemographs at Yarmouth and Sandwick. 



Mr. Baker visited the Valencia and Falmouth Observatories for the 

 purpose of inspection during his vacation. 



With the sanction of the Meteorological Council, weekly abstracts 

 of the meteorological results have been regularly forwarded to, and 

 published by " The Times " and " The Torquay Directory." Data 

 have also been supplied to the Council of the Royal Meteorological 

 Society, the editor of " Symons's Monthly Meteorological Magazine," 

 the Secretary of the Institute of Mining Engineers, Messrs. Gwilliam, 

 Rowland, and others. The cost of these abstracts is borne by the 

 recipients. 



Etectrograph. — The difficulty of maintaining the potential of the 

 charge of this instrument constant, mentioned in last year's Report, 

 having greatly increased, in spite of all measures of precaution which 

 were taken, the Meteorological Council were in July informed of its 

 unsatisfactory condition. They accordingly gave instructions to 

 discontinue its working, and it is intended to draw up a report on 

 the results which may be obtained from the eleven years' curves of 

 variations of atmospheric electricity now available for discussion. 



III. Solar Observations. 



The sketches of Sun-spots, as seen projected on the photoheliograph 

 screen, have been made on 170 days, in order to continue Schwabe's 

 enumeration, the results being given in Appendix II, Table IV. 



Transit Observations. — 320 observations of solar and 102 of sidereal 

 transits have been taken, for the purpose of keeping correct local time 

 at the Observatory, and the clocks and chronometers have also been 

 compared daily. The Observatory Chronometer, Breguet 3140, has 

 been cleaned and readjusted. 



The following clocks, French, Shelton K. 0., and Dent 2011, and 

 the chronometers, Molyneux No. 2125, and Breguet No. 3140, are 

 kept carefully rated as time-keepers at the Observatory. 



IV. Experimental Work. 



Photo-nepho graph. — The experiments with the photo-nephographs 

 having proved satisfactory, and a report to that effect having been 

 presented to the Meteorological Council, it was decided in June to 



