The following extracts are from letters to his wife relating to the above-mentioned journeys: 

CLOSE, NORWICH.
1838, Jan. 21.

I do not know what degree of cold you may have had last night, but here it was (I believe) colder than before—­thermometer close to the house at 3 deg..  I have not suffered at all.  However I do not intend to go to Lowestoft.

BRAMPTON.
1838, Sept. 30th.

We began to think that we had seen enough of Scarborough, so we took a chaise in the afternoon to Pickering, a small agricultural town, and lodged in a comfortable inn there.  On Wednesday morning at 8 we started by the railroad for Whitby, in a huge carriage denominated the Lady Hilda capable of containing 40 persons or more drawn by one horse, or in the steep parts of the railway by two horses.  The road goes through a set of defiles of the eastern moorlands of Yorkshire which are extremely pretty:  at first woody and rich, then gradually poorer, and at last opening on a black moor with higher moors in sight:  descending in one part by a long crooked inclined plane, the carriage drawing up another load by its weight:  through a little tunnel:  and then along a valley to Whitby.  The rate of travelling was about 10 miles an hour.  Betsy declares that it was the most agreeable travelling that she ever had.

Yesterday (Saturday) Caroline drove Betsy and Miss Barnes drove me to Clay Cross to see the works at the great railroad tunnel there.  Coming from the north, the railroad passes up the Chesterfield valley close by the town and continues up the same valley, till it is necessary for it to enter the valley which runs the opposite way towards Buttersley:  the tunnel passes under the high ground between these two vallies:  so that it is in reality at the water-shed:  it is to be I think more than a mile long, and when finished 27 feet clear in height, so it is a grand place.  We saw the preparations for a blast, and heard it fired:  the ladies stopping their ears in due form.

1839

“Cambridge Observatory:—­On Mar. 7th I went to Cambridge on the business of the Northumberland Telescope:  I was subsequently engaged on the accounts, and on Aug. 16th I finally resigned it to Prof.  Challis, who accepted it on Aug. 19th.  On Sept. 11th I communicated its completion and the settlement of accounts to the Duke of Northumberland.  The total expense was L1938. 9s. 2d. + 15000 francs for the object-glass.

“At Greenwich Observatory:—­On Jan. 3rd I received the last revise of the 1837 Observations, and on Jan. 8th the first sheet for 1838.—­In July I report on selection from a long list of chronometers which had been on trial, and on Sept. 2nd I pointed out to Capt.  Beaufort that the system of offering only one price would be ruinous to the manufacture of chronometers, and to the character of those supplied to the Admiralty:  and that I would undertake any trouble of classifying the chronometers tried.