ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 17 



commenced in 1818, 2250 officers have been employed on it i.e., in 

 the geodesic and topograpical operations alone. The annual expense is 

 about 8150,000 per year. 



Mr Bartlett, Commissioner for running the boundary between the United 

 States and Mexico, has devoted much attention to the Indian vocabularies 

 of the districts visited during the progress of the survey. His researches 

 have corresponded exactly with those submitted to philological inquiry by 

 the lamented Albert Gallatin, with the addition of forty words discovered 

 by Mr. Bartlett during the progress of this Commission. The number of 

 words now ascertained is two hundred. Mr. B. will return accounts of 

 the Vocabularies of nineteen languages west of the Rio Grande. These 

 results will prove highly important and useful. 



Considerable interest has been of late excited in Russia among the scien- 

 tific men in regard to the prosecution of meteorological investigations, and 

 at their request observations are now being constantly taken in England, 

 France, Prussia, and other parts of Europe. The Russian Government 

 has liberally encouraged the desire of its savants to investigate thoroughly 

 this important branch of science, which has hitherto not received so much 

 attention as others. It has established for them not fewer than ten magnetic 

 and meteorological observatories ; viz., one at St. Petersburgh, another at 

 Catharineburg in the Ural Mountains, two at Barnoual and Nertschinsk 

 on the Chinese frontier, one at Sitka in North America, one at Tiflis, anoth- 

 er at Pekin, two others at Bogoslowsk and Zlatouste on the western side of 

 the Oural mountains, and one at Lougan in the steppes of the Don. In 

 addition there are also a considerable number of stations in different parts 

 of the Empire. At all these establishments observations are taken at every 

 hour of the day and night. 



An important step in relation to the system of weights and measures, 

 was recently taken by the Bank of England. The only weights to be here- 

 after used in the Bullion Office of that establishment will be " the Troy 

 ounce and its decimal parts," superceding by that change the present 

 system of pounds, ounces, pennyweights and grains. Practically the 

 change will be one of great convenience. 



Among the scientific publications of 1852, issued by the United States 

 Government are the following : Report on the Iron Region and the Lake 

 Superior Mining District, by Messrs. Foster and Whitey, U. S. Geologists; 

 Part second, with volume of maps ; Patent Office Report for 1851, 2 vols. 

 Mechanical and Agricultural, by Thomas Ewbank ; Expedition to the 

 Great Salt Lake, by Capt. Howard Stansbury, U. S. N ; Maury's Winds, 

 Currents, and Sailing directions new and enlarged edition ; Scientific 

 Report of the Dead Sea Expedition, Lieut, Lynch, U. S. N. ; U. S. Explor- 

 ing Expedition, Conchology, Dr. A. A. Gould ; Chart of the Arctic Re- 



