"I had long desired to see Switzerland, and I wished now to see some of the Continental Observatories. I was therefore glad to arrange with Mr Lodge, of Magdalene College (perhaps 10 years senior to myself), to make a little tour. Capt. W.H. Smyth and others gave me introductions. I met Lodge in London, and we started for Calais on July 27th 1829. We visited a number of towns in Belgium (at Brussels I saw the beginning of the Observatory with Quetelet), and passed by Cologne, Frankfort, Fribourg, and Basle to Zurich. Thus far we had travelled by diligence or posting: we now procured a guide, and travelled generally on foot. From the 13th to the 31st August we travelled diligently through the well-known mountainous parts of Switzerland and arrived at Geneva on the 31st August. Here I saw M. Gautier, M. Gambard, and the beginning of the Observatory. Mr Lodge was now compelled to return to Cambridge, and I proceeded alone by Chambéry to Turin, where I made the acquaintance of M. Plana and saw the Observatory. I then made a tour through north Italy, looking over the Observatories at Milan, Padua, Bologna, and Florence. At Leghorn I took a passage for Marseille in a xebeque, but after sailing for three days the weather proved very unfavourable, and I landed at Spezia and proceeded by Genoa and the Cornici Road to Marseille. At Marseille I saw M. Gambart and the Observatory, and passed by Avignon, Lyons, and Nevers to Orléans, where I visited my old host M. Legarde. Thence by Paris, Beauvais, and Calais to London and Cambridge, where I arrived on the 30th October. I had started with more than _£140_ and returned with _2s. 6d_. The expedition was in many ways invaluable to me. "On my return I found various letters from scientific men: some approving of my method for the mass of the Moon: some approving highly of my printed observations, especially D. Gilbert, who informed me that they had produced good effect (I believe at Greenwich), and Herschel.--On Nov. 13th I gave the Royal Astronomical Society a Paper about deducing the mass of the Moon from observations of Venus: on Nov. 16th a Paper to the Cambridge Philosophical Society on a correction to the length of a ball-pendulum: and on Dec. 14th a Paper on certain conditions under which perpetual motion is possible.--The engravings for my Figure of the Earth in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana were dispatched at the end of the year. Some of the Paper (perhaps much) was written after my return from the Continent.--I began, but never finished, a Paper on the form of the Earth supposed to be projecting at middle latitudes. In this I refer to the printed Paper which Nicollet gave me at Paris. I believe that the investigations for my Paper in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana led me to think the supposition unnecessary.--On Nov. 6th I was elected member of the Geological Society.