outh, Fellow of
St Peter's College, Cambridge, at Greenwich Parish Church. They
afterwards resided at Cambridge."

1865

"Our telegraphic communications of every kind were again destroyed by
a snow-storm and gale of wind which occurred on Jan. 28th, and which
broke down nearly all the posts between the Royal Observatory and the
Greenwich Railway Station.--The Report to the Visitors states that
'The only change of Buildings which I contemplate as at present
required is the erection of a fire-proof Chronometer Room. The
pecuniary value of Chronometers stored in the Observatory is sometimes
perhaps as much as _L8000_.'--The South Eastern and London Chatham and
Dover scheme for a railway through the Park was again brought
forward. There was a meeting of Sir J. Hanmer's Committee at the
Observatory on May 26th. Mr Stone was sent hastily to Dublin to make
observations on Earth-disturbance by railways there. I had been
before the Committee on May 25th. On Sept. 1st I approved of an
amended plan. In reference to this matter the Report states that 'It
is proper to remark that the shake of the Altazimuth felt in the
earthquake of 1863, Oct. 5th, when no such shake was felt with
instruments nearer to the ground (an experience which, as I have heard
on private authority, is supported by observation of artificial
tremors), gives reason to fear that, at distances from a railway which
would sufficiently defend the lower instruments, the loftier
instruments (as the Altazimuth and the Equatoreals) would be sensibly
affected.'--Some of the Magnets had been suspended by steel wires,
instead of silk, of no greater strength than was necessary for safety,
and the Report states that 'Under the pressure of business, the
determination of various constants of adjustment was deferred to the
end of the year. The immediate results of observation, however, began
to excite suspicion; and after a time it was found that, in spite of
the length of the suspending wire (about 8 feet) the
torsion-coefficient was not much less than 1/6. The wires were
promptly dismounted, and silk skeins substituted for them. With these,
the torsion-coefficient is about 1/210.'--The Dip-Instrument, which
had given great trouble by the irregularities of the dip-results, had
been compared with two dip-instruments from Kew Observatory, which
gave very good and accordant results. 'It happened that Mr Simms, by
whom our instruments now in us