108 
Sidereal Time 
Mean Time 
Mean Time 
Angle from 
at 
Observatory. 
at 
Observatory. 
at 
Greenwich. 
N.Point. 
Vertex. 
Disappearance... 
2 h 59 m 13 s 
7 h 16“ 10 s 
7 h 25 m 6’ 
100° 
82° 
j Reappearance ... 
4 h 10 m 5 s 
8 h 26"' 50 s 
8 h 35 m 46' 
282° 
280° 
The angles are reckoned towards the right hand round 
the circumference of the Moon’s image as seen in an invert- 
ing telescope. 
Mr. Baxendell read the following letter, addressed by 
T. H. Babington, Esq., to G. V. Vernon, F.RA.S., and dated 
Langley, 13th Feb., 1867 : — 
You have been kind enough to send me a copy of a letter 
recently received by yourself from Dr. Buys Ballot, of 
Utrecht, in which the writer claims for himself the origina- 
tion of the system of issuing storm warnings. 
He says, “I laid down my principles before the Dutch 
Academy of Sciences in October, 1857 ; in the Gomptes 
Rendus de VAcademie des Sciences de Paris in November, 
1857. I made my first proposal to the Dutch Government 
on the 14th of November, 1859, and the system was com- 
menced on the 1st of June, 1860, or nine months sooner 
than in England.” 
It is no doubt the fact that Admiral Fitzroy did not give 
his first “warning” before the 5th of February, 1861, but 
he had been for years engaged in organising the service and 
maturing his plans. 
I feel it therefore incumbent upon me, in justice to the 
memory of my late chief, to offer a few remarks upon that 
portion of Dr. B. Ballot’s letter which I have quoted. 
What the nature of the system of warnings which Dr. B. 
Ballot claims to have introduced at Utrecht in 1860 may 
have been I do not know, — but Holland must, at that 
period, have been mainly or entirely dependent upon obser- 
