REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 17 



and to devote as much time to them as their other engagements and 

 the means at their disposal will allow. Since this memoir has met 

 the approval of the scientific world, it will be proper to make as 

 liberal an appropriation as the demands on the limited income of the 

 Institution will permit for the continuance of researches in the same 

 line. The publication of the paper was of comparatively little 

 expense, since it required no costly illustrations, and this may be an 

 additional reason for granting a larger appropriation for further in- 

 vestigations in the same line. 



The ninth volume also contains the supplement to the tables by J. 

 D. Runkle, mentioned in the last report. The tables in this supple- 

 ment are intended to facilitate calculations with reference to the 

 asteroids. The search for these bodies has been prosecuted with so 

 much vigor of late that their list now extends to more than fifty, and 

 the mechanical labor required to calculate their places is so great that 

 this can scarcely be expected to be accomplished, except by the use of 

 general tables. The work of Gauss on the theory of the motion of 

 the heavenly bodies leaves little to be desired, so far as the deter- 

 mination of their orbits is concerned ; but this is by no means the 

 case with regard to their perturbations by the larger planets. The 

 tables therefore will afford an important means of facilitating the ad, 

 vance of our knowledge, particularly of this class of the members of 

 our solar system. 



The third part of the Nereis Boreali- Americana, by Dr. Willip^m H. 

 Harvey, has been completed and will be included in the tenth volume 

 of the Contributions. Two hundred extra copies of the text of the 

 preceding parts having been struck off before the distribution of the 

 types, and the drawings on the lithographic stones having been pre- 

 served, an equal number of plates from the latter have been printed 

 and colored, so that we shall be enabled to make up two hundred 

 copies of the complete work to be offered for sale, which will serve, 

 it is hoped, to reimburse, in some degree, the heavy expense incurred 

 in the publication of this interesting addition to the science of botany. 

 It may be proper to mention that the work was published in numbers, 

 in order that the whole expense should be defrayed by tlie appro- 

 priation of different years, as well as to furnish the author the oppor- 

 tunity of rendering the work more complete by more extended re- 

 search. 



For the purpose of classification, the sea plants have been grouped 



2 s 



