320 SCIENTIFIC RECORD FOR 1882. 



ographs on the principal bodies of the Solar System, and Stellar A.s- 

 tronomy. The first and third volumes, being thought of less pressing 

 importance than the second, will be published subsequently, and will 

 relate, the first to works (or separate publications), and the third to 

 observatories and the observations made at them. 



This work has been epitomized in the Vade-mecum de C Astronomie^ 

 8vo, 1 vol., 1882. 



The Greenwich Observatory, always prompt in its publications, is 

 this year even more i^rompt than usual. The volume of 1879 has been 

 distributed ] parts of the volume for 1880 have also been sent out, and 

 the whole volume is nearly printed ; and at the date .of writing, the vol- 

 ume for 1881 is nearly ready for the printer. 



Professor Folic, director of the new observatory at Luttich, has 

 published new tables for computation of the precession, nutation, etc. 

 These are more complete than Coffin's and Hubbard's tables in the 

 Washington observations for 1847, and according to the account of 

 them in V. J. S. der Ast. GeselL, 1881, p. 291, they are also more con- 

 venient, as the argument (R. A.) does not vary uniformly, as in the 

 "Washington tables, but is varied so as to make the interpolation easy. 



The German Astronomical Society is about to issue another volume 

 of its publications (the quarto series). It has for title, Syzygien- Tafeln 

 fur den Mond, nehst ausfuhrlicher Anweisung ihres Gebrauchs, von Th. von 

 Oppolzer. 



The publication (by Scribners) of Trouvelot's "Astronomical draw- 

 ings of the sun, planets, comets, and nebulae" gives us a work never at- 

 tempted before on such a scale, and only recently made i)ossible. 



The plates represent to the general student and the public, with 

 accuracy and beauty, the chief celestial objects and phenomena, almost 

 exactly as the power of modern instruments now presents them to the 

 trained eye of the astronomer. Not only are the general appearance 

 and relative positions of the different objects accurately given, but their 

 peculiar and delicate colorings are reproduced with excellent efl'ect — a 

 result which photography is wholly inadequate to" secure. 



The fifteen years' study of which this is the fruit has involved the 

 preparation of about seven thousand larger and smaller drawings, in 

 which telescopes of all powers have been used, from the great 2G-inch 

 equatorial in Washington to instruments of 6^ inches aperture. The 

 whole series consists of 15 large plates. 



Neic astronomical journal. — M. Flammarion has recently founded a 

 new popular astronomical journal, having for title : IPAstronomie, revue 

 mensuelle d'Astronomie populair^, de Meteorologie et de Physique du Globe. 



No. I is dated March, 1882, and contains a good account of the observ- 

 atory of Paris, with wood-cuts of its ai^i^earance in 1G72 and at present. 

 A list of the instruments now in use is given, which we copy: 



