XVI NOTES ON THE PEOGEESS OF SCIENCE. 



statement how exact a knowledge of the movements of cometary 

 bodies has been attained to, through the accepted theory of gravita- 

 tion. 



Another important event of the year is the publication of another 

 part of the " Durchemisterung " of Professor Argelander, Director 

 of the Observatory at Bonn. The completion of this gigantic work 

 involves the observing and mapping of all the stars of the northern 

 heavens, as far as the ninth magnitude, which embraces stars twenty 

 times as faint as any visible to the naked eye. In the present portion 

 of the work we have the places of 105,075 stars charted with so great 

 accuracy that a good instrument and careful observing would be neces- 

 sary to detect any error in the positions given. Mr. Pogson, Director 

 of the Observatory at Madras, intends, it is understood, to complete 

 this work by charting the southern heavens, thus making, it would 

 seem, almost all that could be desired in the way of celestial maps. 



The government of Ecuador, S. A., has recently made a proposi- 

 tion to the French government to erect an observatory on the Plateau 

 of Durito, the situation offering advantages such as few other spots in 

 the world possess. Not only is the position of the Plateau towards the 

 axis of the earth, and consequently towards the starry firmament, 

 peculiarly favorable, but its atmosphere is always clear, and it is almost 

 entirely free from the rising and falling currents of air, which offer 

 such great optical difficulties to observation on most of the elevated 

 points of the globe. 



We present to the readers of the Annual of Scientific Discovery for 

 1863 the portrait of J. ERICSSON (from a photograph by Fredericks, 

 of New York), the inventor of the " Caloric Engine," the designer of 

 the " Monitor " iron-clads, and the foremost of American mechanical 

 engineers. 



