literature.  As the propriety of this was doubtful, there was a general feeling for taking legal advice:  and it was set aside solely on purpose to raise the question about legal consultation. That was negatived by vote:  and I then claimed the consideration of the question which we had put aside for it.  By the influence of H. Warburton, M.P., this was denied.  I wrote a letter to be laid before the Meeting on July 28th, when I was necessarily absent, urging my claim:  my letter was put aside.  I determined never to sit with Warburton again:  on Aug. 2nd I intimated to Lord Burlington my wish to retire, and on Aug. 29th he transmitted to the Home Secretary my resignation.  He (Lord Burlington) fully expressed his opinion that my claim ought to have been allowed.—­On June 9th, on the occasion of Prince Albert’s state visit to Cambridge, knighthood was offered to me through his Secretary, Prof.  Sedgwick, but I declined it.—­In September, the Russian Order of St Stanislas was offered to me, Mr De Berg, the Secretary of Embassy, coming to Greenwich personally to announce it:  but I was compelled by our Government Rules to decline it.—­I invited Le Verrier to England, and escorted him to the Meeting of the British Association at Oxford in June.—­As regards the Westminster Clock on the Parliamentary Building:  in May I examined and reported on Dent’s and Whitehurst’s clock factories.  Vulliamy was excessively angry with me.  On May 31st a great Parliamentary Paper was prepared in return to an Order of the House of Lords for correspondence relating to the Clock.—­With respect to the Saw Mills for Ship Timber:  work was going on under the direction of Sylvester to Mar. 18th.  It was, I believe, at that time, that the fire occurred in Chatham Dock Yard which burnt the whole of the saw-machinery.  I was tired of my machinery:  and, from the extending use of iron ships, the probable value of it was much diminished; and I made no effort to restore it.”

Of private history:  “In February I went to Derby to see Whitehurst’s clock factory; and went on with my wife to Brampton near Chesterfield, where her mother was living.—­From Apr. 1st to 5th I was at Playford.—­On Holy Thursday, I walked the Parish Bounds (of Greenwich) with the Parish officers and others.  From Apr. 19th to 24th I was at Birmingham (on a visit to Guest, my former pupil, and afterwards Master of Caius College) and its neighbourhood, with George Arthur Biddell.—­From June 23rd to 28th I was at Oxford and Malvern:  my sister was at Malvern, for water-cure:  the meeting of the British Association was at Oxford and I escorted Le Verrier thither.—­July 28th to 30th I was at Brampton.—­From August 10th to September 18th I was engaged on an expedition to St Petersburg, chiefly with the object of inspecting the Pulkowa Observatory.  I went by Hamburg to Altona, where I met Struve, and started with him in an open waggon for Luebeck, where we arrived on Aug. 14th.  We proceeded by steamer to Cronstadt and