ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. VII 



resented the difference : " Take a hair and measure it, .and you will 

 find that the correction of the distance amounts to this, that we have 

 to look at the hair at a distance of 125 feet. This is the correction 

 that astronomers have made : or, let us look at a sovereign at a distance 

 of eight miles ; it amounts to about the same thing. "We ought to be 

 thankful that we are able to calculate and correct such inappreciable 

 quantities." 



Astronomical Memoranda. The Lalande prize of the French 

 Academy has been awarded to Mr. Alvan Clark, of Cambridgeport, 

 Mass., for his discovery of the companion star of Sirius, the great object- 

 glass (18 inches in diameter), with which this most interesting discovery 

 was made, was Mr. Clark's own manufacture, and was intended for the 

 observatory of the University of Mississippi. In consequence, however, 

 of the breaking out of the civil war, this glass was never delivered, and 

 has since been sold to the Astronomical Association of Chicago for 

 11,000 dollars. It is highly creditable to the West that such a purchase 

 should have been made for its busiest trading city, and we may antici- 

 pate that the observatory of Chicago, which has already done good 

 work, will achieve a reputation in the higher branches of astronomy. 



At a meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society held March, 1863, Dr. 

 Kern produced a translation of a portion of the works of Aryabhatta, a 

 celebrated Hindoo mathematician of antiquity, which seemed to prove 

 conclusively that the sphericity and diurnal rotation of the earth had 

 been correctly apprehended by that early Indian writer, who flourished 

 at an epoch variously estimated by different investigators, but which 

 must have been prior to A. D. 600, and has been placed as far back as 

 B. c. 100. 



Extension of Telegraphic Communication. During the year 1863, com- 

 munication by electric telegraph has taken place between London and 

 Turnen, in Siberia, a distance of 4039 miles. It was anticipated that 

 an extension of the wires will be made to Nikolaievski, on the Pacific, 

 by the end of 1863, and that telegraphic communication with New 

 York, via Siberia and California, will be established by the end of 

 1865. 



Meteorological Science. The most important contributions to Me- 

 teorological Science of the year have been made through the balloon 

 ascensions of Mr. James Glaisher, under the auspices of the British As- 

 sociation. The observations of the meteorologist show that the de- 

 crease of temperature with elevation does not follow the law previously 

 assumed of 1 in 300 feet, and that in fact it follows no definite law at 

 all. Mr. Glaisher appears also to ha^e ascertained the interesting fact 



