. 21st I have a letter from my sister
saying that they were comfortably settled there.

"In this month of October (principally, I believe) I made some capital
Experiments on Quartz, which were treated mathematically in a Paper
communicated in the next year to the Cambridge Philosophical
Society. In some of these my wife assisted me, and also drew
pictures.--On Nov. 15th the Grace for paying me _L198. 13s. 8d._ to
make my income up to _L500_ passed the Senate.--I made three journeys
to London to attend committees, one a committee on the Nautical
Almanac, and one a Royal Society Committee about two southern
observatories.--On Dec. 31st I have a letter from Maclear (medical
practitioner and astronomer at Biggleswade) about occultations.--In
this December I had a quartz object-glass by Cauchaix mounted by
Dollond, and presented it to the Observatory.--In this December
occurred the alarm from agrarian fires. There was a very large fire at
Coton, about a mile from the Observatory. This created the most
extraordinary panic that I ever saw. I do not think it is possible,
without having witnessed it, to conceive the state of men's minds. The
gownsmen were all armed with bludgeons, and put under a rude
discipline for a few days."

1831

"On Jan. 4th I went with my wife, first to Miss Sheepshanks in London,
at 30, Woburn Place, and next to the house of my wife's old friend,
the Rev. John Courtney, at Sanderstead, near Croydon. I came to London
on one day to attend a meeting of the new Board of Visitors of the
Greenwich Observatory. Formerly the Board of Visitors consisted of the
Council of the Royal Society with persons invited by them (in which
capacity I had often attended). But a reforming party, of which
South, Babbage, Baily and Beaufort were prominent members, had induced
the Admiralty to constitute a new Board, of which the Plumian
Professor was a member. Mr Pond, the Astronomer Royal, was in a rather
feeble state, and South seemed determined to bear him down:
Sheepshanks and I did our best to support him. (I have various letters
from Sheepshanks to this purpose.)--On Jan. 22nd we returned to
Cambridge, and I set an Examination Paper for Smith's Prizes as
usual.--On Jan. 30th I have a letter from Herschel about improving
the arrangement of Pond's Observations. I believe that much of this
zeal arose from the example of the Cambridge Observations.

"On Feb. 21st my Paper 'On the nature