INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS DURING THE YEAR 1875. xxiii 



ains of Elam, found a cognate race already settled in Chaldea. 

 Having with them built the great cities of Babylonia, they 

 were themselves subsequently, between the 30th and 40th 

 centuries B.C., conquered by the Semites, who are known to 

 history as the Chaldeans. By this ancient people the divis- 

 ions of the zodiac, the days of the week, the months, and the 

 year were established. Four and sixty were their most fa- 

 vorite subdivisions and multiples. 



Mr. T. J. Lowry, of the Coast Survey, describes a new in- 

 strument based upon the principle of the sextant, by which 

 two adjacent angles can be at once measured by one observ- 

 er. It therefore allows one person, by observing three dis- 

 tant stations, to fix his position in the three-point problem ; 

 the new instrument will doubtless prove of great service in 

 surveying. 



Mr. Christie states that he has been employing for a year 

 past the photometer invented by him, and finds that the prob- 

 able error of a stellar magnitude is only the twentieth part. 

 A feeble red star is, according to him, more easily distin- 

 guished than a feeble blue star. 



It is .proposed, on the occasion of the celebration of the 

 centenary of the Genevan Society of Arts, founded in 1776, 

 to distribute prizes to the makers of those chronometers 

 which withstand the somewhat severe test applied by the 

 committee of examination. 



The astronomical necrology embraces Mr. Henry Twit- 

 chell, who died on the 26th of February at Cincinnati, at the 

 age of 59. Mr. Twitchell was for twenty years the honored 

 assistant and the principal observer at the observatory of 

 that city. Strictly speaking, he was the contriver of the 

 first chronograph ever constructed. 



Hofrath Hennert Schwabe died, at the age of 85, at Dessau, 

 Germany. His discovery, after forty years of observation, of 

 the periodical nature of the phenomena of the solar spots, 

 will long remain a brilliant example of the value of persever- 

 ing; observations. 



The Sun. The most important researches on the solar 

 phenomena have been those of Professor Langley, of Pitts- 

 burgh. As the result of some six years' patient observations 

 he has been able greatly to add to our knowledge of the pe- 

 culiarities of the sun. After having succeeded in optical 



