Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/190

112 method proposed in the instructions with which I was furnished, and pursued by many of the foreign observatories, in which only one of the instruments was noted at each interval, was so manifest on looking over the series, that I resolved to continue this method throughout the remainder of our voyage; it was subsequently adopted at my earnest recommendation at the observatories of St. Helena, Cape of Good Hope, and Toronto, and by all those established by the liberality of the Russian government throughout its extensive dominions.

As soon as the August term-day observations were obtained, the instruments belonging to the permanent observatory were removed to allow the fitting up of the interior of the building, and to line it throughout, in order to prevent as much as possible great changes of temperature. The building, which is forty-eight long by sixteen broad, is entirely of wood, and care was taken that not the smallest particle of metal of any kind was used in its construction, the whole of the fastenings being of wooden pegs. The instruments are placed on pillars of sandstone, fixed in the solid rock, of the same formation, and defended from any influence the heat of the body of the observer might have upon them by the intervention a closely-fitted deal partition; the observer reading off the instrument by means of a telescope also fixed on a smaller pillar of the same kind, through a small aperture in the wooden partition several feet distant from the instrument.