Glaisher, JAMES

Glaisher, JAMES, meteorologist, was born in London in 1809. When twenty years of age he began to make meteorological observations as an officer of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland. For three years from 1833 he was employed in the observatory at Cambridge, and in 1836 removed to Greenwich, where four years later he became superintendent of the magnetical and meteorological department of the Royal Observatory, a post which he held for thirty-four years. Since 1841 he has prepared the annual and quarterly meteorological reports issued by the registrar-general. Between 1862 and 1866 he made twenty-eight balloon ascents for the purpose of studying the higher strata of the atmosphere, on one occasion reaching a height of over 7 miles (see Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1862-66, and BALLOON). Mr Glaisher was the founder of the Royal Meteorological Society, and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1849. He has written numerous works and papers on subjects relating to astronomy and meteorology. In 1879-83 he published a complement to Bureckhardt and Dace's Factor Tables.