This is a summary of the ten years (1955-1964) of observations of solar flares reported by 61 observatories. The flare reports have been published predominantly in the IAU Bulletin and CRPL-F Series Part B. This report summarizes the types of information contained in the flare reports, and the frequency of some parts of these reports as functions of many parameters. The results reflect the need for closer cooperation and coordination of participating observatories in recording and reporting solar flare data.

A decade of data on the operation of the international solar flare patrol has been collected and analyzed. These data were compiled from World Data Centers A and C, and from the individual observatories. Tests were made to correct errors introduced in the recording and handling of the data. This paper describes the data sources, error editing program employed, and the magnetic tape which has been prepared and contains the available hours of H-alpha patrol from 55 observatories for the period 1955-1964. A few tables are included showing some of the information available from the tape.

The solar radio sweep-frequency observations and hours of patrol from five rad radio observatories for the period 1955 through 1964 have been compiled, edited, and put onto two magnetic tapes. One tape contains the hours of radio patrol from the observatories at Ann Arbor, Bigpine, Boulder, Sydney and Fort Davis. Another tape contains the sweep-frequency observations in the meter and dekameter wavelengths of the radio spectrum from these observatories. The sources, methods of reduction, and the format and content of the data on tape are described. Statistics related to various distributions of the radio spectral activity reported by each station are discussed and demonstrate an urgent need for standard policies in detecting, scaling, classifying, and reporting these data.

A flare event list that is consistent with flare patrol times is prerequisite to a reliable, unbiased estimate of flare occurrence per unit patrol time. A comparison of the flare occurrence times and flare patrol times reported by 52 solar observatories during the period of 1955 to 1964 discloses that 12.3 percent of the flare reports (Importance = or > 1) have no reported patrol coverage. Elimination of these 'unpatrolled' flare reports reduces the number of individual flare events in the data sample by 9.7 percent. This means that flare occurrence per unit patrol time computed from the raw flare and flare patrol data is overestimated by this same percentage. In addition to eliminating 'unpatrolled' flare reports, appropriate adjustments are made in the 'patrolled' flare data so as to make each observatory's reported flare times completely consistent with its reported patrol times.

A computer program has been developed which processes and groups individual observations of solar flares which describe the same feature. From each group of observations a consolidated description of the flare 'event' is produced. The report details the methods by which these groups are formed and the subsequent consolidated descriptions achieved. (Author).