Report of the Kew Committee. 



353 



In accordance with instructions received from the Council of the 

 Royal Society, ten volumes of miscellaneous registers, principally of 

 magnetic observations made at Toronto during the years 1840-49, 

 which were deposited in the Magnetic Office of General Sir E. Sabine, 

 in the Observatory, have been returned to Canada, in order that they 

 may be utilised by Mr. Carpmael, the Director of the Toronto Obser- 

 vatory. 



Particulars as to the method employed for testing sextants at Kew 

 have been forwarded at his request to Dr. Gr. ISTeumayer, Director of 

 the Deutsche Seewarte, Hamburg. 



VII. Miscellaneous and Financial. 



Tenure of the Observatory. — In January last an inquiry was insti- 

 tuted by Her Majesty's Commissioners of Works and Public Buildings 

 as to the conditions under which the President and Council of the 

 Royal Society occupied the Observatory building, and it was dis- 

 covered that through inadvertence no intimation had been made, in 

 1872, to their office of the transfer of the building from the British 

 Association to the Royal Society. 



Steps were immediately taken to rectify the omission, and in May 

 Mr. Mitford, Secretary to the Office, informed the Secretary of the 

 Royal Society that Her Majesty's sanction had been obtained for the 

 continuance of the occupation of the Royal Observatory at Kew by 

 the Royal Society upon the following conditions : — 



1st. The occupation shall be only during the pleasure of Her 

 Majesty and of the Department. 



2nd. The internal repairs, painting, papering, and whitewashing 

 shall be done by the tenants once at least in every seven years, the 

 external works being executed by the Department. 



3rd. No structural alteration shall be effected without the consent 

 of the Board. 



The above conditions were submitted by the President and Council 

 to the Kew Committee, who have agreed to the terms laid down. 



The Secretary of State for the Colonies having consulted the Com- 

 mittee as to the equipment of the new Observatory at Hong Kong, 

 has been advised by them as to the instruments they would recommend 

 as desirable for use at that Institution. 



The Committee have also recommended the establishment at the 

 Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope of a set of self- 

 recording magnetographs. 



Complete specimen sets of curves from the various photographic 

 and autographic instruments in use at the Observatory have been 

 prepared and forwarded to the exhibitions of the Society of Arts, 

 London, and the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, Falmouth. 



A number of anemometers and other instruments of interest were 



