man's character. And here, I think, our views totally
separate. I do not imagine that the University Degree would really
imply, as regards education, anything more than is known to all
persons (socially concerned in the happiness of the young woman) from
the less public testimonial of the able men who have the means of
knowing their merits. And thus it appears to me that the admission to
University Degree would simply mean a more extended publication of
their names. I dread this."

1881

"The new line of underground telegraph wires has been completed by the
officers of the General Post Office. The new route is down Croom's
Hill in Greenwich, and the result of this change, at least as regards
the earth-current wires, and probably as regards the other wires, has
not been satisfactory. It was soon found that the indications of the
earth-current wires were disturbed by a continual series of petty
fluctuations which almost completely masked the proper features of
earth currents.... If this fault cannot be removed, I should propose
to return to our original system of independent wires (formerly to
Croydon and Dartford).--The new Azimuth-mark (for the Altazimuth),
upon the parapet of the Naval College, is found to be perfectly
satisfactory as regards both steadiness and visibility. The
observations of a low star for zero of azimuth have been omitted since
the beginning of 1881; the mark, in combination with a high star,
appearing to give all that is necessary for this purpose.--All the
instruments have suffered from the congealing of the oil during the
severe weather of the past winter, and very thorough cleaning of all
the moving parts has been necessary.--The Solar Eclipse of 1880,
Dec. 31, was well observed. The first contact was observed by four
observers and the last contact by two. The computations for the
observations have been exceptionally heavy, from the circumstance that
the Sun was very low (86 deg. 14' Z.D. at the last observation) and that
it has therefore been necessary to compute the refraction with great
accuracy, involving the calculation of the zenith distance for every
observation. And besides this, eighty-six separate computations of the
tabular R.A. and N.P.D. of cusps have been required.--Amongst other
interesting spectroscopic observations of the Sun, a remarkable
spectrum of a sun-spot shewing 17 strong black lines or bands, each as
broad as b_1, in the solar spectr