ASTRONOMY. u 



in order that this labor should not be altogether in vain, 

 Herr Strasser, the present director, has incorporated with 

 them his recent results for the period 18G4-1874. He has 

 thus formed a catalogue of 750 stars, all reduced to the 

 epoch 1870, the two sets of observations being combined in 

 case of agreement between the results." 



Mr. Pogson, of Madras, has about 29,000 unpublished me- 

 ridian observations of about 3000 southern stars, from which 

 a catalogue is to be compiled and published. He is also 

 making a complete atlas of telescopic variable stars in 136 

 maps, containing the approximate positions of over 40,000 

 stars. 



Dr. Gylden, director of the Observatory of Stockholm, has 

 published the first part of Vol. I. of the annals of that ob- 

 servatory. It contains the observations of right ascensions 

 made at Stockholm during 1874, and a catalogue of the mean 

 rio-ht ascensions of these stars for 1875.0. Part second will 

 contain the north polar distances ; part third will contain 

 tables of elliptic functions of use in the calculation of the 

 perturbations of comets. 



Professor SafFord, of Williams College, has prepared for 

 the use of the United States Engineer Department Survey 

 under Lieutenant Wheeler a catalogue of the declinations of 

 2018 stars, which is now passing through the press. 



The catalogue of standard declinations, prepared by Pro- 

 fessor Boss, of Albany, is now being printed. 



Dr. Loewy, of Pads, has presented to the French Academy 

 of Sciences a catalogue of 521 moon-culminating stars. The 

 places of these depend upon observations made at the Ob- 

 servatory of the Bureau of Longitudes with portable instru- 

 ments. The bureau has just completed the determination of 

 the telegraphic longitudes of Neuchatel, Geneva, and Lyons. 

 It will shortly undertake the determination of the longitude 

 of Lisbon. KnobePs important work on the Chronology of 

 Star Catalogues is mentioned under Bibliography. 



THE SUN. 



In a paper published in the American Journal of Science 



and Arts, Dr. Henry Draper, of New York City, announces 



the discovery, by means of spectroscopic photography, of 



Oxvgen in the solar atmosphere ; and he brings the evidence 



