Letters from various observatories on filling vacancies, building new observatories at Blackheath and the West Midlands, and improving existing observatories (e.g. by erecting new time balls in Quebec). The correspondents include R. Sheepshanks, J.F.W. Herschel, J.D. Forbes, C.P. Smyth, Sir B. Hawes, M.J. Johnson, W.H. Miller, J. Challis, Sir F. Beaufort and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There are reports on the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, and two reports on Liverpool Observatory (1851). There are also three sets of plans, one on waxed canvas, on the proposed time balls at Quebec, and reports and inventories for a proposed observatory for the Royal Artillery Institute, Woolwich.