316 SCIENTIFIC RECORD FOR 1882. 



Used at Cambridge 1845 



Used at Washington 18 i5 



Used at Greenwich — 1847 



McGormick Observatory. — Prof. Ormond Stone of the Cincinnati Ob- 

 servatory, has been appointed director of the Leander McCormick Obser- 

 vatory of the University of Virginia. The institution is alreadj' in pos- 

 session of the great refracting telescope made by the Clarks a few years 

 ago for Mr. McCormick, who generously presented it to the university 

 in 1877. It cost nearly $50,000. The friends of the university have 

 contributed $75,000 to endow the chair of astronomy. 



Warner & Swazey, of Cleveland, have completed arrangements with 

 the director of this observatory (Prof. O. Stone) by which they are to 

 build a 45-foot iron and steel dome to contain the 26^-inch Clark refractor. 



The dome is to turn on a live ring, on Grubb's plan, but the rolls are 

 to be mounted in an ingenious manner which does away with most of 

 the friction, and allows of the most accurate placing of the ring on the 

 track. It is guaranteed that the dome (45 feet) will revolve with a 

 direct pressure of fifty pounds. 



Foreign observatories. — The last number of the Vierteljahrsschrift der 

 AstrononuscJien Gesellschaft contains reports of the proceedings of some 

 twenty of the observatories in Europe during the year 1881. At Berlin 

 observations for the zone + 20° to 25°, were actively continued, upwards 

 of 10,000 being made in the year. The 9 inch refractor was employed 

 for comets and small planets, etc., the physical appearances of the comet 

 1881 III, receiving special attention. With the Declinograph 1,200 small 

 stars were observed, making, up to the end of 1881, 12,329 stars, mostly 

 from the eleventh to the thirteenth magnitudes, thus determined in con- 

 nection with the identification and observation of the small planets. 

 At Bonn the southern '' Durchmusterung" furnished observations of 

 upwards of 14,000 stars, so that rapid progress is being made with this 

 work under the direction of Professor Schoenfeld. At Brussels astro- 

 nomical physics, as well as meridian observations, have been attended 

 to; the meteors of the August period were extensively observed over 

 Belgium; Christiania was mainly occupied, under Dr. Fearnley, with the 

 zone Go'^ — 70°, and the curious circumstance of the existence of four 

 variable stars in this zone within a radius of 1° is recorded; the first, 

 in 20^ 59'" 20« + 66^ 8 "5, has been estimated by various observers 

 from 5m. (Lalande) to 9m. (Argelander) ; the second is in 20^ 59™ 48* 

 -f G70 35^9 ; the third in 21i» 7"^ 33« + 67° 54'.4, and the fourth in 21" 

 llm 498 ^_ CGO 0'.9, for 1855.0. Baron v. Engelhardt, at Dresden, has 

 zealously observed the various comets of the year, and has made 111 

 observations of 19 minor planets. The principal instrument in the 

 Baron's observatory is an equatorial refractor by Howard Grubb, of 

 Dublin; aperture 30G'""'. A new jiliysical observatory has been erected 

 at Her6ny, Hungary, by Eugen and Alexander von Gothard, the posi- 



i 



