eferred it to the Board of Visitors. On March 25th I received
authority for the expenditure of _L30_, and I believe that I then
ordered Merz's 2-foot magnet. The Visitors met on Feb. 26th and after
some discussion the site was chosen and the extent of ground generally
defined, and on Dec. 22nd Mr Spring Rice (Lord Monteagle) as
Chancellor of the Exchequer virtually effected the transfer of the
ground. But no further steps were taken in 1836. A letter on a
systematic course of magnetic observations in various parts of the
world was addressed by Baron Alexander Humboldt to the Duke of Sussex,
President of the Royal Society; and was referred to Prof. Christie and
me. We reported on it on June 9th 1836, strongly recommending the
adoption of the scheme.

"A plan had been proposed by the Promoters of the London and Gravesend
Railway (Col. Landman, Engineer) for carrying a railway at high level
across the bottom of the Park. On Jan. 9th I received orders from the
Admiralty to examine into its possible effect in producing vibrations
in the Observatory. After much correspondence, examination of ground,
&c., I fixed upon a part of the Greenwich Railway (not yet opened for
traffic) near the place where the Croydon trunk line now joins it, as
the place for trains to run upon, while I made observations with a
telescope viewing a collimator by reflection in mercury at the
distance of 500 feet. The experiments were made on Jan. 25th, and I
reported on Feb. 4th. It was shewn that there would be some danger to
the Observatory. On Nov. 2nd Mr James Walker, Engineer, brought a
model of a railway to pass by tunnel under the lower part of the Park:
apparently this scheme was not pressed.

"In addition to the routine work of the Observatory, a special set of
observations were made to determine the mass of Jupiter.--Also the
Solar Eclipse of May 15th was observed at Greenwich in the manner
which I had introduced at Cambridge.--The Ordnance Zenith Sector, and
the instruments for the St Helena Observatory were brought for
examination.--Much attention was given to chronometers, and various
steps were taken for their improvement.--I had some important
correspondence with Mr (Sir John) Lubbock, upon the Lunar Theory
generally and his proposed empirical lunar tables. This was the first
germ of the great reduction of Lunar Observations which I subsequently
carried out.--In October I was nominated on the Council of the Royal
Society, having been ad