322 



Report of the Kew Committee. 



VII. Miscellaneous. 



Photographic Paper, Sfc. — This has been supplied to the Observa- 

 tories at Alipore, Colaba, Falmouth, Glasgow, Mauritius, Stony- 

 hurst, St. Petersburg, and Toronto, and to the Meteorological Office. 



History of the Observatory .* — A paper giving a history of the Kew 

 Observatory from its earliest foundation down to the present date has 

 been compiled by Mr. R. H. Scott, a member of the Committee, and 

 printed in the " Proc. Roy. Soc," vol. xxxix, p. 37. 



Dowson Gift. — The Committee are indebted to Mr. E. T. Dowson, 

 F.R. Met. Soc, for the presentation of a large collection of weights 

 and measures formed by the late Mr. James Yates, F.R.S., member 

 of the Metric Committee of the British Association, with books 

 and pamphlets bearing on the Metric System. At the request of 

 Mr. H. J. Chaney, Warden of the Standards, a number of these 

 works, copies of which were not to be found in the Library of the 

 Standards Office, were handed over by the Committee to that Depart- 

 ment. 



The Observatory has also been presented by the Rev. John Rigaud, 

 B.D., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, with a framed sketch 

 portrait of his father, Stephen Peter Rigaud, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., 

 Savilian Professor of Astronomy and Radcliffe Observer, who, in the 

 early part of the present ceutury, during the Oxford vacations, was 

 in the habit of relieving his uncle, the Rev. S. Demainbray, of his 

 charge as " The King's Observer at Kew." 



Exhibition. — A number of instruments of interest were exhibited 

 at the Sixth Annual Exhibition of the Royal Meteorological Society, 

 which was devoted to sunshine recorders and actinometry, and held in 

 the rooms of the Institution of Civil Engineers in March last. 



International Inventions Exhibition. — The Committee have exhibited 

 in Groups 27 and 29 at this Exhibition articles of which the following 

 is the description as given in the Official Catalogue : — 



"Forms and papers illustrating the methods employed at the Kew 

 Observatory, Richmond, in examining, rating, and certifying as to 

 the performance of watches, pocket chronometers and chronographs 

 for the manufacturers and general public." 



" (1.) Photo-nephograph or Cloud-height Measuring Apparatus. 

 (2.) Apparatus employed in the examination and testing of sextants, 

 quadrants, theodolites, &c. (3.) Specimens of certificates awarded 

 to instruments, and general information relating thereto." 



The Jury Commission has awarded to the Committee a Diploma of 

 Honour for their exhibits. 



The Superintendent, with the consent of the Committee, read the 



* This paper was based upon a short note on the History of the Observatory, 

 submitted by Mr. McLaughlin, one of the staff, to a local Society in .Richmond. 



