The arrangements are now finalized, and the Buildings Department is ready to proceed.
All is therefore ready for calling for tenders for the work as soon as His Excellency may be pleased to authorize it.
It is a coincidence worthy of remark that at this time, when the Observatory project is being actively pushed forward, the importance of one of the proposed branches of research has been impressed upon those who live in the region more strongly than at any time for many years past. It doubtless has not escaped His Excellency's notice that typhoons in the China Sea have been unusually numerous and violent in the season lately expired, and have been accompanied by a great deal of disaster at sea and on land; that they have extended far into the writer's region (only last week one was passing over the south of Japan), and that some of them, notably those on 12th-13th August and 20th to 30th August, have exhibited phenomena of very great rarity and interest.
St. D. Palmer,
Major