Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/203

 1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 175 lishment of a new Observatory, on the Highlands of India, or in some other part of the British dominions where the climate is favourable for the use of large instruments. 3. The Council do not recommend the establishment of an independent Government Observatory for the cultivation of Astro- nomical Physics in England, especially as they have been informed that the Board of Visitors of the Royal Observatory at their recent meeting recommended the taking of Photographic and Spectro- scopic records of the Sun at that Observatory. It was proposed in amendment by Colonel Strange, seconded by Mr. De la Rue, that the following be substituted for these clauses : The following seems to the Council to be the provision now requisite : 1. An Observatory, with a laboratory and workshop of moderate extent attached to it, to be established in England for the above researches. 2. A certain number of Branch observatories, to be estab- lished in carefully-selected positions in British territory, in communication with the Central Observatory in England, for the purpose of first, giving to Photographic Solar Registry that continuity which experience has already proved to be necessary ; and, secondly, to investigate the effect of the Earth's Atmosphere on Physico-Astronomical Researches in different geographical regions, and at different altitudes. In these purposes India and the Colonies offer peculiar advantages. The amendment did not receive approval, but the three substantive clauses were carried by vote at the meeting on June 28. This is the bare record of the result of the proceedings, but in the course of the discussion Colonel Strange had defined the physics of Astronomy as including photographic, spectroscopic, actinic, photometric, and polariscopic observations of the sun ; ocular, photographic, and photometric observations of the moon, and observation and examination of planets, nebulae, comets, zodiacal light, stars, asteroids, by the same methods so far as they are applicable. Further, he suggested the resolution that, " having in view the extent of the work above indicated, and the fact that no individual has as yet distinguished himself equally in these researches and in the more exact department of Astronomy, it appears to be both an administrative convenience and an intel- lectual necessity that the two departments should be kept distinct." There was evidently a feeling against the establishment of a Solar Physical Observatory * under independent control apart name was associated by many with the proposed Solar Observatory.
 * Though it does not appear on the records, it is known that Mr. Lockyer's