THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 17 



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the nicest exercise of skill in astronomical instrument making. There 

 are out two such instruments in Europe, one at Konigsberg, used by 

 Bessel in the measure of the sun and the triangulation of the pleiade? ; 

 the other, which is a still more magnificent instrument, recently made 

 by Repsold for the Radcliffe Observatory at Oxford, has not yet been 

 put in use. It is with this instrument that Bessel has demonstrated 

 that the stars have parallax and measured its amount. His instru- 

 ment reads to hundredths of a second of an arc, and is accurate to 

 less than a tenth of a second." 



The sum of one thousand dollars has also been given by Erastus Corn- 

 ing of Albany for the construction of an Astronomical clock on a new 

 plan proposed by Dr. Gould. A meridian circle, which it is expected 

 will be the most perfect instrument of the kind, as well as equal in 

 size to any hitherto constructed, has also been contracted for in Mu- 

 nich. Other instruments are in the process of completion, and it is 

 anticipated that the Dudley Observatory will be fully equipped and 

 in working order sometime during the present year. 



Astronomer Broun, in the employ of the East India Company, in a 

 letter to Colonel Sykes from India, which was read at the last meeting 

 of the British Association, describes the successful establishment of an 

 Observatory on the mountain Augustus Mullay, at 6,200 feet above 

 the sea level, for the purpose of simultaneous record with the Observ- 

 atory at Trevandrum. The difficulties of access to the summit of 

 the mountain were so great, from having to cut paths through dense 

 jungles, infested by elephants and other wild animals from having 

 to use ropes and mechanical aid in getting up the building materials, 

 provisions, and the instruments and in the delays from the laborers 

 running away from fright and the effects of cold that two years were 

 consumed in the undertaking. The object of Astronomer Broun in. 

 making known his successful efforts in Europe is to enable observers 

 to put themselves into communication with him, in case they should 

 desire to have any experimental researches made on so novel a posi- 

 tion for an Observatory. 



Sir David Brewster, in his recent life of Sir Isaac Newton, thus ad- 

 verts to the prospect of future astronomical progress and discovery: 



" However great have been the achievements of the past, and how- 

 ever magnificent the instruments to which we owe them, the limits 

 of telescopic vision have not been reached, and space has yet marvel- 

 ous secrets to surrender. A ten feet reflector will be due to science 

 before the close of the century, and a disc of flint-glass, twenty-nine 

 inches in diameter, awaits the command of some liberal government, 

 or some munificent individual, to be converted into an achromatic 

 telescope of extraordinary power. In cherishing these sanguine ex- 

 pectations, we have not forgotten that the state of our northern at- 



