12 



REPOKT OF THE SECRETARY. 



Europe, were set forth in the last report. This Institution is the center 

 of diffusion throughout our own country, of astronomical announce- 

 ments received by telegraph from foreign countries, and in like manner 

 acts as the medium of communication of American discoveries through 

 Atlantic cables to the European observatories of Greenwich, Paris, 

 Berlin, Vienna, and Pulkova; from which points the information is 

 spread throughout their respective countries. Through the courtesy of 

 various telegraph companies, the information received from abroad is 

 transmitted to the principal observatories (some seventeen in number) 

 throughout the United States, and also to the "Associated Press," free of 

 charge. This generous concession to the urgent needs of astronomical 

 research and progress is so valuable a boon to science that it should 

 annually receive a grateful . and public acknowledgment. The com- 

 panies to whose liberality we are thus indebted are: The Atlantic Cable 

 Company, The United States Cable Company, The Pacific Cable Com- 

 pany, The Western Union Telegraph Company. To these must be 

 added the Northwestern Telegraph Comj^any, which gives gratuitous 

 transmission of astronomical telegrams to Northfield, Minn. 



Prof. B. A. Gould, the eminent superintendent of the observatory of Cor- 

 doba, of the Argentine Eepublic, when making a visit lately to the United 

 States on his way to Europe, had some conference with several leading 

 astronomers respecting certain proposed improvements in the exchange 

 of telegrams, and of the character of the abbreviations to be employed. 

 These suggestions, presented to the Institution, were by it embodied in 

 a circular, which was referred to the directors of the different observa- 

 tories scattered over our country soliciting their opinion as to the 

 desirability of the changes proposed. Dr. C. H. P. Peters, of the 

 observatory at Clinton, N. Y., to whom the original suggestion of tele- 

 graphic announcement is mainly due, was particularly desired to give 

 the subject his consideration. When the various responses to these cir- 

 culars of inquiry are received, it is intended to have them carefully con- 

 sidered by a commission of astronomers, and the formulas which api^ear 

 to meet the general approval will be finally adopted as the uniform and 

 permanent method of designation. 



The announcements of astronomical discoveries made during the -past 

 year are as follows : 



List of minor planets discovered in 1880. 



