228 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE
Leonard Darwin was subsequently set up to test photographic lenses, and to enable appropriate certificates to be given them.
So the institution throve, and was a "going concern," but it was wholly unequal in its scale to the rapidly growing requirements of the day. This feeling found expression in the Anniversary Address to the British Association in 1895, by my cousin Sir Douglas Galton ; powerful support was given to his suggestions and efforts, and finally the Kew Committee was merged into the much larger and more important National- Physical Observatory, under the directorship of Mr. Glazebrook, which swallowed at a single gulp the whole of our thrifty savings.
I look back with pleasure to my long connection with the Kew Observatory, for its Committee always consisted of very capable men, who gave time without stint to the discussion of the new questions which continually arose, and which could be answered by experts only.
Mr. Gassiott (1797-1877), of whom I have spoken, succeeded Sir Edward Sabine as its Chairman. He was remarkable for solid sense and business acumen, and played a considerable part in the work of the Royal Society. His experiments on electric discharges in quasi-vacuo were very beautiful, and thought highly of at the time. He was a striking instance of the combination of scientific research with the direction of an important business, for he was one of the principal wine merchants, and said to be the largest importer of port wine in London.
Another instance of the same combination was his successor in the same office, Mr. Warren De la
