I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your very obedient Servant,
G.B.  AIRY.

The Secretary of the Admiralty,

* * * * *

From the Assistants of the Royal Observatory, with whom he was in daily communication, whose faithful and laborious services he had so often thankfully recognized in his Annual Reports to the Board of Visitors, and to whom so much of the credit and success of the Observatory was due, he received the following address: 

                                         ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH,
                                                  1881, August 11.

DEAR SIR,

We cannot allow the official relation which has so long existed between yourself and us to terminate without expressing to you our sense of the admirable manner in which you have, in our opinion, upheld the dignity of the office of Astronomer Royal during the many years that you have occupied that important post.

Your long continued and varied scientific work has received such universal recognition from astronomers in all lands, that it is unnecessary for us to do more than assure you how heartily we join in their appreciation of your labours.  We may however add that our position has given us opportunities of seeing that which others cannot equally well know, the untiring energy and great industry which have been therein displayed throughout a long and laborious career, an energy which leads you in retirement, and at fourscore years of age, to contemplate further scientific work.

We would ask you to carry with you into private life the best wishes of each one of us for your future happiness, and that of your family, expressing the hope that the days of retirement may not be few, and assuring you that your name will long live in our remembrance.

We are, dear Sir,
Yours very faithfully,
W.H.M.  CHRISTIE, EDWIN DUNKIN, WILLIAM
ELLIS, GEORGE STRICKLAND CRISWICK, W.
C. NASH, A.M.W.  DOWNING, EDWARD W.
MAUNDER, W.G.  THACKERAY, THOMAS LEWIS.

Sir G.B.  Airy, K.C.B., &c., &c.,
  Astronomer Royal.

* * * * *

ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH,
1881, August 13.

MY DEAR MR CHRISTIE,
  and Gentlemen of the Royal Observatory,

With very great pleasure I have received your letter of August 11.  I thank you much for your recognition of the general success of the Observatory, and of a portion of its conduct which—­as you remark—­can scarcely be known except to those who are every day engaged in it:  but I thank you still more for the kind tone of your letter, which seems to shew that the terms on which we have met are such as leaves, after so many years’ intercourse, no shadow of complaint on any side.

Reciprocating your wishes for a happy life, and in your case a progressive and successful one,