started before eight in an open carriage to the Plain: looking into
Old Sarum on our way. The Base is measured on what I should think a
most unfavourable line, its north end (from which they have begun now,
in verification of the old measure) being the very highest point in
the whole plain, called Beacon Hill. The soldiers measure only 252
feet in a day, so it will take them a good while to measure the whole
seven miles. While we were there Col. Hall (Colby's successor) and
Yolland and Cosset came.'"

Of private history: "I made short visits to Playford in January, April
and July. From July 28th to Sept. 12th I made an expedition with my
wife to Orkney and Shetland.--From Dec. 24th to 26th I was at
Hawkhurst, on a visit to Sir John Herschel."

1850

"The Report to the Board of Visitors opens with the following
paragraph: 'In recording the proceedings at the Royal Observatory
during the last year, I have less of novelty to communicate to the
Visitors than in the Reports of several years past. Still I trust that
the present Report will not be uninteresting; as exhibiting, I hope, a
steady and vigorous adherence to a general plan long since matured,
accompanied with a reasonable watchfulness for the introduction of new
instruments and new methods when they may seem desirable.'--Since the
introduction of the self-registering instruments a good many
experiments had been made to obtain the most suitable light, and the
Report states that 'No change whatever has been made in these
instruments, except by the introduction of the light of coal-gas
charged with the vapour of coal-naptha, for photographic
self-registration both of the magnetic and of the meteorological
instruments.... The chemical treatment of the paper is now so well
understood by the Assistants that a failure is almost unknown. And,
generally speaking, the photographs are most beautiful, and give
conceptions of the continual disturbances in terrestrial magnetism
which it would be impossible to acquire from eye-observation.'
--Amongst the General Remarks of the Report it is stated
that 'There are two points which have distinctly engaged my
attention. The first of these is, the introduction of the American
method of observing transits, by completing a galvanic circuit by
means of a touch of the finger at the instant of appulse of the
transiting body to the wire of the instrument, which circuit will then
animate a magnet that w