187 



port, the following extract of a letter received from him by the 

 secretary of the Institute: 



" Fddhausen, near Wynherg, ) 

 Cape of Good Hope, Sept. 30, 1836. I 

 " Sir — I have just received, through the favor of the Secretary 

 of the Royal Society, the meteorological observations made at the 

 Albany Institute on the 21st and 22d of December, 1835. I am 

 truly rejoiced to find this readiness of co-operation at a station of 

 so much importance, and I beg that you will return my best thanks, 

 personally as well as in the name of the institution here, over 

 which I have the honor for the present to preside, and to which 

 your communication has been made, to the president and council 

 of your institution and especially to the committee of iis members 

 who have undertaken with such alacrity and performed with so 

 much apparent care, the somewhat harrassing observations requi- 

 red. We will indulge the hope that they will be continued on 

 succeeding occasions and communicated in like manner, and I have 

 no doubt when one or two years' observations shall have thus ac- 

 cumulated from the now numerous and continually increasing sta- 

 tions which have placed themselves in correspondence with us, 

 that from their comparison, results of a general and important na- 

 ture will not fail to arise. 



" Permit me to suggest, that in continuing the observations un- 

 til an opportunity shall occur of ascertaining by direct or interme- 

 diate comparison with some standard of authority, the zero point 

 of the barometer, (or by instituting some direct inquiry into the 

 absolute length of the mercurial column, by actual measurement,) 

 it would be desirable that the same instrument should be employ- 

 ed, (unless there be reason to fear that in transporting it from its 

 usual place its zero should change,) and that any opportunity which 

 may occur of comparing it with other barometers should be seized. 



" In addition to the observations heretofore made, that of the 

 temperature of the soil at 6 or 8 feet below the surface, or of the 

 water at the bottom of a deep well, which would give very little 

 additional trouble — as one or two observations on each day would 

 suffice — would be valuable as leading by the shortest course to a 

 knowledge of the mean temperature of the station." 



The committee now present the observations made by Sir John 

 Herschel in June, and those of the 21st of December last, which 

 have been sent to the Institute; abstracts of meieorologioal regis- 



