altazimuths....  All the observers have undergone a course of training in photography; first, under a professional photographer, Mr Reynolds, and subsequently under Capt.  Abney, R.E., whose new dry-plate process is to be adopted at all the British Stations....  A Janssen slide, capable of taking 50 photographs of Venus and the neighbouring part of the Sun’s limb at intervals of one second, has been made by Mr Dallmeyer for each of the five photoheliographs.”—­Attached to the Report to the Visitors is a copy of the Instructions to Observers engaged in the Transit of Venus Expeditions, prepared with great care and in remarkable detail.—­“In the past spring I published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society a statement of the fundamental points in a new treatment of the Lunar Theory, by which, availing myself of all that has been done in the best algebraical investigations of that theory, I trust to be able by numerical operations only to give greater accuracy to final results.  Considerable progress has been made in the extensive numerical developments, the work being done, at my private expense, entirely by a junior computer; and I hope, at any rate, to put it in such a state that there will be no liability to its entire loss.  When this was reported to the Board of Visitors, it was resolved on the motion of Prof.  Stokes, that this work, as a public expense, ought to be borne by the Government; and this was forwarded to the Admiralty.  On June 24th I wrote to the Secretary of the Admiralty, asking for L100 for the present year, which after the usual enquiries and explanations was sanctioned on Aug. 29th.”

Of private history:  There were short visits to Playford in January, June, and October, but only for a few days in each case.—­In March there was a run of two or three days to Newnham (on the Severn) to see the Bore on the Severn, and to Malvern.—­In July he went to Newcastle to observe with Mr Newall’s great telescope, but the weather was unfavourable:  he then went on to Barrow House near Keswick, and spent a few days there, with excursions among the mountains.—­On Aug. 13th he went with his daughter Christabel to the Isle of Arran, and then by Glasgow to the Trosachs, where he made several excursions to verify the localities mentioned in the “Lady of the Lake.”—­While in Scotland he heard of the death of his brother, the Rev. William Airy, and travelled to Keysoe in Bedfordshire to attend the funeral; and returned to Greenwich on Aug. 24th.

1875

“In October of this year I wrote to the Admiralty that I had grounds for asking for an increase of my salary:  because the pension which had been settled on my wife, and which I had practically recognized as part of my salary, had been terminated by her death; so that my salary now stood lower by L200 than that of the Director of Studies of the Royal Naval College.  The Admiralty reply favourably, and on Nov. 27th the Treasury raise my salary to L1,200.—­For