KEW OBSERVATORY AND METEOROLOGY 233
and were occasionally open to serious criticism. I myself ventured to attack them in some particulars which it is needless now to recall.
On his lamented death it was determined to reconstruct the office, and a small Departmental Committee of the Board of Trade was named to consider the question. It consisted of Mr., afterwards Lord, Farrer (1819-1899), who was then the Secretary of the Board, the then Hydrographer, Captain, afterwards Sir Frederick, Evans (1815-1885), and myself. We reported in 1866, and I must here pay a tribute to the singular grasp and thoroughness of Lord Farrer, whose occasional brief notes to me, in the course of the inquiry, were models of clearness combined with cordiality.
The result was the formation of a Meteorological Committee in 1868, of which I was a member, for giving storm warnings to seaports, for procuring data for marine charts of weather, and for maintaining a few standard Observatories with self-recording instruments. An annual grant was made to meet its expenses. This avowedly provisional arrangement worked well for some years, when it was felt that the scope of the Meteorological Committee ought to be somewhat enlarged and its constitution reconsidered. So a second Government Committee was appointed by the Board of Trade and the Treasury jointly, of which I was again a member, and in consequence of their Report the " Meteorological Committee " was changed into the " Meteorological Council," with an enlarged grant. It continued in this form until 19o5, a little after I had retired from it owing to increasing deafness. It has subsequently been modified anew,
