Item 80 - James David Forbes to Edward Sabine

8 pp

Edinburgh - JDF was surprised when the BAAS Treasurer, Mr Taylor, told him that he had been instructed not to pay certain tradesmen's bills for expenses connected with the anemometer at Edinburgh, and had thus returned them to the original parties: 'I feel sure that common courtesy would have naturally dictated any enquiry preliminary to so strong a measure as returning bills for work done, to the parties'. JDF outlines the facts of the case as he understood it: 'I do not think that the idea of my being made personally liable for this expense ever occurred to me'. The main cost came from the expense of the actual paper and printing of blank forms for more than three years: 'Are we to pay for the very materials which, after having been covered with valuable information by the labour of years, has long since passed from our hands, and was claimed by the Committee of the Association a year and a half, or more after the alleged recall of the instrument to Kew?'