305 
SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
ASTRONOMY. 
Astronomer Royal's Annual Repoi't . — The Report delivered this 
year by Sir G. Airy to the Greenwich Board of Visitation is noteworthy 
for remarks apparently of a valedictory nature. It is impossible to read the' 
summary of the work done during the Astronomer Royal’s forty years’ 
tenure of office without feeling that the time is drawing near when he 
proposes to retire. 11 The report/’ he says, u which I have now read is the 
fortieth of its class which I have had the honour to lay before the Board 
of Visitors. During the time to which they apply the constitution of the 
Observatory, personal and material, has been greatly changed. Only one 
member of the Board of Visitors, I believe, remains as witness of my first 
proceedings. There is not now a single assistant or a single instrument in 
use (for even Shuckburgh’s equatorial is not employed as a graduated 
instrument) of those which formed the establishment of 1835. The con- 
templation of this long period and of these changes induces me to look 
backward and forward on the objects of the Observatory and the mode of 
carrying them out.” After sketching the past history of the Observatory, 
and describing the work carried out during the last forty years, the Astro- 
nomer Royal proceeds thus : — “ Turning now from the past to the future, 
I see little in which I could suggest any change. If it should ever be 
necessary to make any reduction, I should propose to withdraw meteorology, 
photoheliography, and spectroscopy, not as unimportant in themselves, or 
as ill fitted to the discipline of the Observatory, but as the least connected 
with the fundamental idea of our (sic) establishment. In the nature of 
addition, I will indicate one practical point. I much desire to see the 
system of time-signals extended by clocks or daily signals to various points 
of our great cities and our dockyards, and, above all, by hourly signals on 
the Start Point, which I believe would be the greatest of all benefits to 
nautical chronometry. Should any extension of our scientific work ever 
be contemplated, I would remark that the Observatory is not the place for 
new physical investigations. It is well adapted for following out any 
which, originating with private investigators, have been reduced to laws 
susceptible of verification by daily observation.” We cannot very warmly 
commend the tone of these suggestions for the future. They correspond, 
however, to the views which have been habitual with Sir G. Airy for 
many years past, and which are natural when the origination of new ideas 
has become to some degree a labour and a toil. It is so much easier to 
YOL. XIV.— NO. LYI. X 
