76 CORRESPONDENCE ON ASTRONOMICAL ANNOUNCEMENTS. 



Thus, notwithstanding that Article IV, section 6, specifies the very con- 

 cise and explicit statement of the day of the iceek for the date, a majority 

 of notices received substitute the day of the month. It is difficult, 

 therefore, to carry out your suggestion that we should refuse to forward 

 dispatches not in exact form. 



Before going to press with our long-delayed astronomical telegraph 

 circular, I will trouble you with extracts from a single additional re- 

 sponse to our request for suggestions, asking from you the favor of 

 your consideration and judgment on it. 



Copy of extract from a communication received from the Observatory 

 at Dun Echt, Scotland, and dated January 7, 1881. 



[Inclosure. — The principal portion of the latter from Lord Lindsay- 

 Earl Crawford.] 



On the foregoing extract, I venture to make the following queries : 



1. Is there not some force in the suggestion to employ date of ohser. 

 ration rather than prospective date and predicted place? 



2. Is there any advantage in designating R. A. in hours, minutes, and 

 tenths, over the present form in hours, minutes, and sixths (or seconds 

 in tens) ? 



3. Might it not be well to write the motion in declination, as north- 

 njcard or southward, in full '? 



4. To avoid any risk of misapplication, might it not be well to write 

 in full "tenth magnitude'"? 



5. Is not the word ^'■zero-^ really preferable to either "nought" or 

 <' cipher"! 



Your frank opinion and decision on these points will be very accepta- 

 ble, and I may say will be finally adopted. 



Yours, very respectfully, 



Spencer F. Baird. 



The publication of the revised edition of the Astronomical Telegraph 

 Circular was delayed by various circumstances ; among which was a 

 contemplated j)lan for telegraphing American discoveries to our own 

 observatories as well as to those abroad. This had been urged by a 

 large number of American astronomers ; the correspondence on which 

 subject it is unnecessary here to publish. Prof. E. C. Pickering (of the 

 Harvard Observatory), under date of January 13, 1882, strongly recom- 

 mended, in addition to this, the adoption by the Institution of the cipher 

 code of Messrs. S. C. Chandler and John Eitchie, of the Science Observer. 

 This whole matter still remains under advisement. 



