Report of the Kew Committee. 



477 



Society's old standard barometer was used in the daily observa- 

 tions. 



The barograph and thermograph formerly at work at the Armagh 

 Observatory have been put in thorough repair, and set up in the 

 Verification House awaiting the instructions of the Meteorological 

 Council as to their transmission to the new Observatory now erected 

 at Fort William, Inverness, at the base of Ben Nevis. It is the 

 intention of the Committee controlling the Observatory on the 

 summit of that mountain, to maintain a second establishment near 

 the sea-level for the purpose of working in conjunction with it. A 

 Beckley rain gauge has been also provided to complete the equipment. 



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,' 

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

 the recipients. 



Tables of the monthly values of the rainfall and temperature have 

 been regularly sent to the Meteorological Sub-Committee of the 

 Croydon Microscopical and Natural History Club for publication in 

 their Proceedings. Detailed information of all thunderstorms ob- 

 served in the neighbourhood during the year has been forwarded 

 to the Royal Meteorological Society soon after their occurrence. 



'Electro graph. — This instrument has been in constant action through- 

 out the year, and comparisons with the portable electrometer 

 (White, 53) made in March, June, and September show the scale 

 value to have remained unchanged. 



III. Solar Observations. 



Sketches of Sun-spots have been made on 173 days, and the groups 

 numbered after Schwabe's method, the results being given in Appen- 

 dix II, Table IV. 



Time Signals. — At the suggestion of the Engineer at the General 

 Post Office, a galvanometer has been fitted to the chronograph in 

 order that the Greenwich time signal may be observed on those occa- 

 sions when it fails to record itself on the chronograph. The 10 a.m. 

 signal has only failed on 16 days throughout the year. On 10 of 

 these days, when it was not received at the usual hour, the later one, 

 at 1 r.M., was duly forwarded by the Post Office. The errors of the 

 Greenwich clock on certain selected dates, when some uncertainty 

 existed as to the correctness of the signal received, have been 

 courteously given after application to the Astronomer Royal. 



Transit Observations. — Solar and sidereal transits have been occa- 

 sionally observed as a check on the signalled times. 



