te
that I am beginning to try whether the Barrel moves with sufficient
uniformity to be itself used as the Transit Clock. This, if perfectly
secured, would be a very great convenience, but I am not very sanguine
on that point.'--A change had been made in the Electrometer-apparatus:
'A wire for the collection of atmospheric electricity is now stretched
from a chimney on the north-west angle of the leads of the Octagon
Room to the Electrometer pole.... There appears to be no doubt that a
greater amount of electricity is collected by this apparatus than by
that formerly in use.'--As regards the Magnetical Observations: 'The
Visitors at their last Meeting, expressed a wish that some attempt
should be made to proceed further in the reduction or digest of the
magnetical results, if any satisfactory plan could be devised. I
cannot say that I have yet satisfied myself on the propriety of any
special plan that I have examined.... I must, however, confess that,
in viewing the capricious forms of the photographic curves, my mind is
entirely bewildered, and I sometimes doubt the possibility of
extracting from them anything whatever which can be considered
trustworthy.'--Great progress had been made with the distribution of
time. 'The same Normal Clock maintains in sympathetic movement the
large clock at the entrance gate, two other clocks in the Observatory,
and a clock at the London Bridge Terminus of the South-Eastern
Railway.... It sends galvanic signals every day along all the
principal railways diverging from London. It drops the Greenwich Ball,
and the Ball on the Offices of the Electric Telegraph Company in the
Strand;... All these various effects are produced without sensible
error of time; and I cannot but feel a satisfaction in thinking that
the Royal Observatory is thus quietly contributing to the punctuality
of business through a large portion of this busy country. I have the
satisfaction of stating to the Visitors that the Lords Commissioners
of the Admiralty have decided on the erection of a Time-Signal Ball at
Deal, for the use of the shipping in the Downs, to be dropped every
day by a galvanic current from the Royal Observatory. The construction
of the apparatus is entrusted to me. Probably there is no roadstead in
the world in which the knowledge of true time is so important.'--The
Report includes an account of the determination of the Longitude of
Cambridge Observatory by means of galvanic signals, which appear to