RECORD OF SCIENCE FOR 1886. 



ASTRONOMY, FOR 1886. 



By William C. Winlock, 

 Assistant Astronomer, United States Naval Observatory, 



In preparing the review of Astronomy for 1886, the method and ar- 

 rangement adopted by Professor Holdeu from 1879 to 1884 have been 

 adhered to without esseutiiil modification. The record is intended pri- 

 marily to serve as a series of notes for those who have not access to a 

 large astronomical library, but it is hoped that the bibliography will be 

 found useful to the professional astronomer as a reference list of tech- 

 nical papers. 



Much assistance has been derived from the reviews and abstracts in 

 the Bulletin Astronomique, the Observatory, Nature, the Athenaeum, 

 and other periodicals, and the writer is indebted to the directors of 

 many observatories for the communication of information not otherwise 

 available. 



A subject-index to the review has been effected by inserting the nec- 

 essary page-references in the bibliography. 



DISTRIBUTION OF STARS. 



Distribution of the stars in Scli'dnfeld's Durchmustermig. — The comple- 

 tion of the Durchmusterung to — 23° of declination by Argelander's 

 successor. Dr. Schonfeld, has given Professor Seeliger the opportunity 

 of extending his counts of stars to a considerable portion of the south- 

 ern hemisphere. Professor Seeliger's paper " Uber die Vertheilung 

 der Sterne. auf der siidlichen Halbkugel nach Schonfeld's 'Durchmus- 

 terung,'" has been published in the Proceedings of the Bavarian Acad- 

 emy of Sciences, and resumes may be found in the Bulletin astrono- 

 mique (3 : 593-6), the Observatory (9 : 399), and Nature (31 : 627). An 

 abstract of Professor Seeliger's previous work was given in the "Ac- 

 count of the Progress in Astronomy" for 1884, and his present discus- 

 sion has been carried out on a plan similar to that there described. 



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