47 
Ordinary Meeting, January 9th, 1883. 
H. E. Roscoe, Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S., &c., President, in 
the Chair. 
Dr. Joule said that he had, in December, 1882, made a 
fresh determination of the freezing point in a sensitive ther- 
mometer constructed 39 years ago. During that time the 
point had risen about 1° Fahrenheit, and although now 
rising very slowly, was not even yet quite stationary, having 
risen - 4 V of a degree Fahrenheit since November, 1879. 
Ordinary Meeting, January 23rd, 1883. 
J. P. Joule, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., &c., Vice-President, in 
the Chair. 
“Remarks on the Simultaneous Variations of the Baro- 
meter recorded by the late John Allan Broun,” by Professor 
Balfour Stewart, F.R.S. 
In the Proceedings of the Royal Society for May 11th, 
1876, will be found an account by Broun of simultaneous 
barometric fluctuations at Singapore, Madras, and Simla, 
extending over the first three months of 1845. One of 
these, a maximum, was likewise shown by Broun to have 
occurred nearly simultaneously on March 31st, at a great 
many stations in both hemispheres. 
The object of these few remarks is to ascertain, quite 
apart from any theoretical considerations, whether such 
apparently cosmical fluctuations have any relation to the 
state of the sun with respect to spots. The spotted areas 
of the solar surface corresponding to these three months 
are derived from observations by Schwabe, which will be 
found recorded in an appendix to the report of the Solar 
Physics Committee. The unit is one millionth of the sun’s 
visible hemisphere. 
Peoceedings— Lit. & Phil. Soc,— Yol» XXII.— No. 4.— Session 1882-3, 
