218 



ASTRONOMY. 



lication, aud it is hard to uuderstaud how astronomers hitherto have 

 managed to get on v/ithoiit such a handbook; it is only a great pity 

 that it has not been published in the shai)e of a handbook, but in a 

 place where it will not be easily accessible to many people. It gives 

 in twentj^ chapters, chronologically arranged, lists of all the different 

 values of astronomical constants, which have been published from the 

 earliest times and down to 1877, in all cases describing the way of find- 

 ing the particular value and adding exact references, by means of which 

 any one can find out for himself all about any value. And more than 

 that, the titles of the principal books and memoirs relating to any sub- 

 ject within the range of the repertory are also given, but completeness 

 is not aimed at in this respect. The lists of constants are very com- 

 plete and nearly always correct, and critics of M. Houzeau's work must 

 first show that thej^ could do better that which is extremely well done. 



M. HouzEAU, who by this excellent piece of work has shown himself 

 eminently familiar with astronomical literature, ancient and modern, 

 and who already in his "Catalogue des Ouvrages d'Astronomie et de 

 Meteorologie qui se trouvent dans les principales Bibliotheques de la 

 Belgique" (1878), has given a very convenient bibliography, is i^ublish- 

 iug a " Bibliographie generale de PAstronomie" in conjunction with M. 

 A. Lancaster, of the Brussels Observatory. This work is to be divided 

 into three parts. Books, Memoirs, and Observations, and will be a most 

 useful guide in the literature of Astronomy. 



An index to the records of observations, etc., outside the ordinary 

 routine work at Greenwich, was printed in the Monthly ISTotices (xxxix, 

 p. 505). 



A complete " Subject-Index to the Publications of the U. S. Xaval 

 Observatory from 1845 to 1875," 74 pages 4to, by Prof. E. S. Holden, 

 is published in the Washington Observations for 187G. 



A list of books and memoirs on celestial spectrum analysis, by M. 

 FiEVEZ, appears in the "Annuaire de I'Observatoire de Bruxelles" for 

 1879, pp. 255-338. 



To commemorate the centennial of the discovery of Uranus, we have 

 "Sir William Hekschel, his Life and Wor^s," by Prof. Holden, of 

 the United States Naval Observatory, Washington. 



In 1847 De Morgan wrote: "The clear and powerful results of 

 William Herschel's mind lie buried in the Philosophical Transactions, 

 inaccessible to the larger i)ortion of those M^ho might learn from them 

 to form a true taste in speculative astronomy, and a true notion of the 

 state of our knowledge of the fabric of the universe." 



Thirty years after this was written, and two generations after 

 Herschel's death, there is still no readier means of studying his 

 works than the original volumes of the Transactions, now become rare 

 and costly. And what is perhaps more widely noticeable outside the 

 circle of special students, there is still no biography of the greatest of 

 practical astronomers and one of the most profound philosophers in 



