12 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



Woahoo,Kerguelen, and Rodriguez Islands, Auckland, New 

 Zealand, and Alexandria. 12 A, January 4, 1872, 177. 



RUSSIAN PREPARATIONS FOR THE TRANSIT OF VENUS. 



In a letter from General Otto Struve, director of the Pul- 

 kowa Observatory, and astronomer royal of Russia, to Profess- 

 or Newcomb, of the Washington Observatory, detailing the 

 Russian preparations for observing the forthcoming transit 

 of Venus, he remarks that the inquiries into the meteorolog- 

 ical conditions of the stations selected have given, on the 

 whole, very satisfactory results, particularly for the station 

 on the coast of the Pacific Ocean and in Eastern Siberia 

 (eighty-five per cent, of clear sky for December). In two only 

 of the stations chosen, Taschkent and Astrabad, these condi- 

 tions are not satisfactory. For this reason the observers de- 

 signed for Taschkent will probably go to a place about one 

 hundred miles west of that town; and, instead of Astrabad, 

 it is proposed to take either the island of Aschuradeh, in the 

 Caspian Sea, or, if possible, to cross the Elburz Mountains, 

 and establish observers at Schahrech, in Persia (with nearly 

 absolute certainty of clear sky). 



The total number of Russian stations will be twenty-four, 

 each of them provided with only one instrument for the tran- 

 sit observation. These instruments are, three four-inch heli- 

 ometers, three photo-heliographs, four six-inch equatorials, 

 and four four-inch equatorials, provided with filar microme- 

 ters and spectroscopic apparatus, and ten four-inch telescopes, 

 designed merely for contact observations. Each station will 

 also be furnished with clocks, chronometers, and the instru- 

 ments necessary for exact determination of time. The prin- 

 cipal instruments have already been ordered. Most of them 

 will be ready for use in the course of the present or begin- 

 ning of next year. For these instruments the observers are 

 also in a great part already selected ; they will all visit Pul- 

 kowa for a certain time in 1873 to exercise themselves in the 

 observations. 



The geographical positions of the stations will not be deter- 

 mined by the transit observers, but all stations on which the 

 transit has been successfully observed will be carefully de- 

 termined afterward by special expeditions of the general staff 

 or the navy. For this purpose a principal line of telegraphic 



