REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 19 



pointed a member of a commission to investigate the merits of signal 

 apparatus to give warning of the accidental occurrence of fire, and dur- 

 ing 1879 Mr. Watkins made experiments in the laboratory of the Insti- 

 tution to test his invention for this purpose. 



In this connection it may be stated that the Secretary of the Institu- 

 tion has, by resolution of Congress, been appointed a member of the 

 commission on improving the ventilation of the hall of the House of 

 Representatives at the Capitol, and that he has attended the meetings 

 of this commission and rendered it such service as his time and oppor- 

 tunity permitted hirn. 



TELEGRAPHIC ANNOUNCEMENTS OF ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES. 



There are many astronomical discoveries, which, for the purpose of 

 co-operative observation, require immediate announcement to observers 

 in distant localities. Among such discoveries are those of planets and 

 comets, or of bodies which are generally so faint as not to be seen except 

 through the telescope, and which being in motion require that their place 

 in the heavens be made known to the distant observer before they so far 

 change their position as not to be readily found. For this purpose the or- 

 dinary mail conveyance requiring at least ten days, is too slow, since in 

 that time the body will have so far changed its position as not to be found, 

 except with great difficulty ; and this change will become the greater if 

 the body is a very faint one, for in that case it could only be discovered 

 on a night free from moonlight, which of necessity, in ten or twelve 

 days, must be followed by nights on which the sky is illuminated by the 

 moon, and all attempts to discover the object would have to be post- 

 poned until the recurrence of a dark night. Indeed, even then the 

 search would often prove in vain ; and it would not be, in some cases, 

 until after a set of approximate elements had been calculated and trans- 

 mitted, that the astronomers on the two sides of the Atlantic would be 

 able fully to co-operate with each other. 



These difficulties were discussed by some of the principal astronomers 

 of America and Europe, and an application was made to the Smithsonian 

 Institution, through Dr. C. H. F. Peters, of Clinton, N. Y., to remove them 

 by transmitting intelligence immediately through the Atlantic telegraph 

 cable. For this purpose the Institution, in 1873, applied to the New York, 

 New t'oumlland and London Telegraph Company and to the Western Union 

 Telegraph Company to be allowed free transmission of this kind of in- 

 telligence, and received through Cyrus W. Field, esq., and William Or- 

 ton, esq., with that liberality which has always attended applications of 

 a similar character by the Institution, the free use of all the lines of 

 these companies for the object in question. 



Similar privileges were granted in Europe for transmitting the intel- 

 ligence between some of the principal centers of astronomical research 

 in Europe and the eastern ends of the Atlantic cables. 



The transmission of intelligence is not restricted to the discovery of 

 planets and comets, but includes that of any remarkable solar phenom- 

 enon which may suddenly present itself in Europe, and of which obser- 



