Christie.--In January I applied to Lord
Auckland for money-assistance to make an astronomical journey on the
Continent, but he refused.--On Mar. 19th Sir James South addressed to
the Admiralty a formal complaint against me for not observing with the
astronomical instruments: on Mar. 31st I was triumphantly acquitted by
the Admiralty.--In June I was requested by the Commissioners of
Railways to act as President of a Commission on Iron Bridges
(suggested by the fall of the bridge at Chester). Lord Auckland
objected to it, and I was not sorry to be spared the trouble of
it.--In December I was requested, and undertook to prepare the
Astronomical part of the Scientific Manual for Naval Officers.--On
Sept. 24th occurred a very remarkable Magnetic Storm, to which there
had been nothing comparable before. Mr Glaisher had it observed by eye
extremely well, and I printed and circulated a paper concerning
it.--Hansen, stimulated by the Lunar Reductions, discovered two long
inequalities in the motion of the Moon, produced by the action of
Venus. In the Report to the Visitors this matter is thus referred to:
'In the last summer I had the pleasure of visiting Prof. Hansen at
Gotha, and I was so fortunate as to exhibit to him the corrections of
the elements from these Reductions, and strongly to call his attention
to their certainty, the peculiarity of their fluctuations, and the
necessity of seeking for some physical explanation.
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