Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/100

 CHAPTER III THE DECADE 1840-1850. (By R. A. SAMPSON.) The Society's Rooms. Throughout this decade the Society occupied its apartments in Somerset House, " commodious apart- ments," as Herschel called them, though we should now find them rather narrow. Their position was Latitude, 51 30' 3 8"'3 N, Longitude, 27 s * 38 W, as ascertained by Hartnup in 1843, working with a sextant and pocket chronometer from the terrace, whence he proceeded by an easy triangulation to the meeting rooms. He does not appear to have determined their height above sea level, and it would seem as if these numbers required correction of about +2", +o s *25 respec- tively, for the Ordnance Survey places the site designated within King's College. The apartments included rooms in which the Assistant Secretary was required to reside (Council Minute, March 1846). During part of the time they included two rooms in the basement. It is noted with satisfaction in the Council Report of 1842, that " Her Majesty's Government has put the Society in possession of two rooms in the basement story of the present building, which have been cleaned out and appropriated for the erection of any apparatus that may be required for pendulum experiments, or for prosecuting any other investigations that may be carried on in such apartments." But congratulation was premature ; though the transfer was promised in 1841 June, we find in 1844 February that the Council have to regret that the rooms have not yet been handed over, " although there is no doubt that they are at this moment wholly unoccupied," and it was not till May of the same year that possession was finally obtained. They were immediately used for housing standard copies of United States weights and measures which had been sent from that country, and afterwards for investigations relating to the Standard Yard. Membership. The total membership, virtually stationary for the first six years, showed thereafter some rapid accessions : the numbers run 82