few days there, with excursions among the mountains.--On Aug. 13th
he went with his daughter Christabel to the Isle of Arran, and then by
Glasgow to the Trosachs, where he made several excursions to verify
the localities mentioned in the "Lady of the Lake."--While in Scotland
he heard of the death of his brother, the Rev. William Airy, and
travelled to Keysoe in Bedfordshire to attend the funeral; and
returned to Greenwich on Aug. 24th.

1875

"In October of this year I wrote to the Admiralty that I had grounds
for asking for an increase of my salary: because the pension which had
been settled on my wife, and which I had practically recognized as
part of my salary, had been terminated by her death; so that my salary
now stood lower by _L200_ than that of the Director of Studies of the
Royal Naval College. The Admiralty reply favourably, and on Nov. 27th
the Treasury raise my salary to _L1_,200.--For the service of the
Clock Movement of the Great Equatoreal, a water-cistern has been
established in the highest part of the Ball-Turret, the necessity for
which arose from the following circumstance: The Water Clock was
supplied by a small pipe, about 80 feet in length, connected with the
3-inch Observatory main (which passes through the Park), at a distance
of about 250 feet from any other branch pipe. In spite of this
distance I have seen that, on stopping the water-tap in the
Battery-Basement under the North-East Turret, the pressure in the
gauge of the Water Clock has been instantly increased by more than 40
lbs. per square inch. The consequent derangement of the Water Clock in
its now incessant daily use became intolerable. Since the independent
supply was provided, its performance has been most satisfactory.--With
the Spectroscope the solar prominences have been mapped on 28 days
only; but the weather of the past winter was exceptionally
unfavourable for this class of observation. After mapping the
prominences, as seen on the C line, the other lines, especially F and
b, have been regularly examined, whenever practicable. Great care has
been taken in determining the position, angle, and heights of the
prominences in all cases. The spectrum of Coggia's Comet was examined
at every available opportunity last July, and compared directly with
that of carbon dioxide, the bands of the two spectra being sensibly
coincident. Fifty-four measures of the displacement of lines in the
spectra of 1