ommanded by my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to
acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 4th instant, intimating
your desire to retire on the 15th August next from the office of
Astronomer Royal.

2. In reply I am to acquaint you that your wishes in this matter have
been communicated to the Prime Minister, and that the further
necessary official intimation will in due course be made to the
Treasury.

3. At the same time I am instructed by their Lordships to convey to
you the expression of their high appreciation of the remarkably able
and gifted manner, combined with unwearied diligence and devotion to
the Public Service (especially as regards the Department of the State
over which they preside), in which you have performed the duties of
Astronomer Royal throughout the long period of forty-five years.

4. I am further to add that their Lordships cannot allow the present
opportunity to pass without giving expression to their sense of the
loss which the Public Service must sustain by your retirement, and to
the hope that you may long enjoy the rest to which you are so justly
entitled.

I am, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
ROBERT HALL.

_Sir G. B. Airy, K.C.B.
&c., &c.,
Royal Observatory, Greenwich._

* * * * *

ADMIRALTY,
_28th June, 1881_.

SIR,

My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have much pleasure in
transmitting copy of a resolution passed by the Board of Visitors of
the Royal Observatory on the 4th June last, bearing testimony to the
valuable services you have rendered to Astronomy, to Navigation, and
the allied Sciences throughout the long period during which you have
presided over the Royal Observatory.

I am, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
ROBERT HALL.

_Sir George Biddell Airy, K.C.B.
&c., &c., &c.,
Royal Observatory, Greenwich._

"The Astronomer Royal (Sir George B. Airy) having announced his
intention of shortly retiring from his position at the Royal
Observatory, the following resolution proposed by Professor
J. C. Adams, and seconded by Professor G. G. Stokes, was then
unanimously adopted and ordered to be recorded in the Minutes of the
Proceedings.

"The Board having heard from the Astronomer Royal that he proposes to
terminate his connection with the Observatory