Point, it appears that communications referring to this proposal had passed between the Board of Admiralty and the Board of Trade, of which the conclusion was, that the Board of Trade possessed no funds applicable to the defraying of the expenses attending the execution of the scheme.  And the Admiralty did not at present contemplate the establishment of these time-signals under their own authority.”—­Amongst other Papers in this year, Airy’s Paper entitled “First Analysis of 177 Magnetic Storms,” &c., was read before the Royal Society.

Of private history:  “There was the usual visit to Playford in the beginning of the year.—­From June 8th to 23rd I made an excursion with my son Hubert to the Isle of Man, and the Lake District.—­From Sept. 7th to 14th I was on a trip to Cornwall with my two eldest sons, chiefly in the mining district.—­In August of this year my eldest (surviving) daughter, Hilda, was married to Mr E.J.  Routh, 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