On our return we visited
Mrs Smith (my wife's mother) at Brampton.--On Dec. 26th I went to
Playford."
1858
"In the Minutes of the Visitors it is noted that the new Queen's
Warrant was received. The principal change was the exclusion of the
Astronomer Royal and the other Observatory Officers from the
Board.--In the Report to the Visitors it is stated that 'The Papers of
the Board of Longitude are now finally stitched into books. They will
probably form one of the most curious collections of the results of
scientific enterprise, both normal and abnormal, which exists.'--It
appears that the galvanic communications, external to the Observatory,
had been in a bad state, the four wires to London Bridge having
probably been injured by a thunderstorm in the last autumn, and the
Report states that 'The state of the wires has not enabled us to drop
the Ball at Deal. The feeble current which arrives there has been used
for some months merely as giving a signal, by which an attendant is
guided in dropping the Ball by hand.'--Regarding the new Equatoreal
the Report states that 'For the new South-East Equatoreal, the
object-glass was furnished by Messrs Merz and Son in the summer of
last year, and I made various trials of it in a temporary tube carried
by the temporary mounting which I had provided, and finally I was well
satisfied with it.
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