A. MATHEMATICS AND ASTRONOMY. 37 



looking immediately for them, and for this reason the first 

 notice of a planet is frequently its last, the most careful search 

 failing to detect it again in consequence of the impossibility 

 of determining a second or third position. 



These considerations have naturally invoked attention to 

 the Atlantic cable as a means for exchanging discoveries; but 

 the great expense of dispatches by it, and the poverty of as- 

 tronomers, has prevented their making use of this means of 

 communication to any great extent. For some time past 

 Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, has been in 

 correspondence with the authorities of the cable for the pur- 

 pose of inducing them to transmit such communications free, 

 and at last has had the pleasure of receiving from Mr. Cyrus 

 W. Field the announcement that this boon has been grant- 

 ed. The precise details of the arrangement to be made are 

 not yet fully established, but it is probable that, in case of 

 important discoveries in America, the fact will be communi- 

 cated by telegraph to the Smithsonian Institution, which will 

 at once forward it to the observatories in Paris, London, Ber- 

 lin, and Vienna, which, in turn, will supply the information 

 to their associates. These same institutions will be the re- 

 cipients, by telegraph, of the first announcements in Europe, 

 to be transmitted to the Smithsonian Institution as before, 

 and the information sent from Washington, either by the me- 

 dium of the Associated Press, or by direct telegraphic dis- 

 patch. The Western Union Telegraph Company has also 

 granted the free use of its wires for the same purpose, in co- 

 oj)eration with the Cable Company. 



The directors of these telegraphs deserve great credit for 

 their enlightened liberality, and for thus aiding in the scientific 

 work of the day, and it is to be hoped that the European inland 

 lines will not be behind in their co-operation, so as to make it 

 an absolutely free interchange from one country to the other. 

 The number of such dispatches traveling in either direction 

 annually can not be very great (hardly more than one or two 

 a month), as during 1872 there were only ten new asteroids 

 discovered, and a proportional number of telescopic comets. 

 It is probable that the information in regard to the discovery 

 of comets in America will be sent more directly to the Vien- 

 na Academy of Sciences, as that body has a standing offer 

 of reward for all such announcements made under certain 

 specific conditions. 



