394 Seco7id Report of the Meteorological Committee of [April 



the state of the barometer, interior and exterior thermometer, 

 Wind, and weather, at the hours agreed upon, during the whole of Ja- 

 nuary, February, March, and April, of the present year, with the pro- 

 mise of their future regular continuance. In this communication the 

 observations appear to have been made with such regularity, and the 

 instructions of the Committee generally so well attended to, as leads 

 them to regret that the barometer employed should (as appears by the 

 numbers set down) be one capable of being read only to the nearest 

 tenth of an inch, and to render them very desirous to supply a better. 

 A spare barometer belonging to the Royal Observatory has been accord- 

 ingly placed at their disposal by the Astronomer Royal, and so soon as 

 it shall be furnished with a new tube, and otherwise repaired, will be 

 forwarded to Captain "Wolfe, with a request that his series of observa- 

 tions may be continued with this instrument, instead of that at present 

 used; — Robben Island being in many respects a highly advantageous 

 station for acquiring an insight into the meteorology of this point of 

 the coast, much more so than Cape Town itself. 



From Worcester, your Committee have received a register of the 

 thermometer only (having no barometer), from P. J. Truter, Esq. 

 Civil Commissioner for the district, for the month of January of the 

 present year. Having only one ther mometer, which is used both for 

 ascertaining the interior temperature and that of the outer air, the Com- 

 mittee would recommend that he should be supplied with at least one 

 other, and be requested, until a barometer can be procured, to fill up 

 the column of the in-door thermometer with' observations of the hy- 

 grometric state of the air, as ascertained by the depression of tempe- 

 rature produced by wrapping the bulb in wet linen or cotton, and sus- 

 pending it freely, in the manner recommended in p. 12 of their In- 

 structions. 



The Committee have also received from the Astronomer Royal, and 

 from Sir J. Herschel, hourly Observations at the Solstices of December 

 1834 and June 1835, and the Equinox of March 1835, made according 

 to the plan proposed in their printed Instructions. The comparison of 

 these observations has shewn, that, in this locality at least, even at sta- 

 tions so near together as Feldhausen and the Royal Observatory, the 

 fluctuations of atmospheric pressure are very far from nicely corres- 

 ponding, and that, so long as any wind subsists in a mountainous dis- 

 trict, the atmospheric strata can by no means be regarded as horizon- 

 tal. The calm, however, having been complete and uninterrupted for 

 ten successive hours on the night of the ^2d ult., afforded an excellent 

 opportunity for determining the difference of level of the two stations, 

 which appears to be 129 feet 8 inches, subject to a trifling correction 

 for the zero points of the barometer, which remains to be more exactly- 

 ascertained. 



