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Art. VII. Report of the Committee appointed to continue 

 the Meteorological Observations, o?i the 21st of 

 June, September, December and March. 



In presenting to the Institute the following tables, as worthy 

 of publication in the pages of its Transactions, your committee 

 believe that the following brief account of their origin will not 

 be deemed inappropriate. 



In the autumn of 1834, the South African Literary and 

 Philosophical Institution appointed a meteorological commit- 

 tee, who presented a report prepared by Sir John Herschel, 

 embracing instructions for the observing and recording meteo- 

 rological phenomena in South Africa,* from which the follow- 

 ing is an extract : 



" With a view to the better determining the laws of the di- 

 urnal changes taking place in the atmosphere, and to the ob- 

 taining a knowledge of the correspondence of its movements 

 and affections over great regions of the earth's surface, or even 

 over the whole globe, the committee have resolved to recom- 

 mend, that four days in each year should henceforth be espe- 

 cially set apart by meteorologists in every part of the world, 

 and devoted to a most scrupulous and accurate registry of the 

 state of the barometer and thermometer, the direction and 

 force of the wind, the quantity, character and distribution of 

 clouds, and every other particular of weather, throughout the 

 whole 24 hours of those days and the adjoining six hours of 

 the days preceding and following. The days they have been 

 induced to fix on and recommend for these observations, are, 

 the 21st of March, the 21st of June, the 21st of September, 

 and the 21st of December, being those, or immediately ad- 

 joining to those, of the equinoxes and solstices, in which the 

 solar influence is either stationary, or in a stale of most rapid 

 variation. But should any one of those 2lst days fall on 



