ASTRONOMY. 187 



mounted. This refractor gave place to o!ie of 4.V inches aperture in 

 187-{, and in 1874 a further addition was made to the buiklings. 

 In 1879 a substantial observatory of brick was erected a few yards 

 southwest of the old building. It consists of an equatorial room 

 (under which is an office) and meridian and prime vertical rooms, the 

 meridian room containing a Cooke transit, mounted in 1870. In I88L5 

 an 8-inch Grubb equatorial supplanted the 4^-inch. Mr. Tebbutt has 

 published many valuable observations of comets, asteroids, double and 

 vaiiable stars, occultations of stars by the moon, etc., during the more 

 than twenty-tive years' existence of his observatory. 



Wolsingham. — Eev. T. E. Espiu has continued his sweeps for red stars 

 and stars with remarkable spectra, and has announced the discovery of 

 several new variables. A 4.8-inch Troughton «fc Simms ecjatorial has 

 been added to the equipment, and a new edition of Birmingham's red 

 star catalogue has been published. In the latter part of 1888 the ob- 

 servatory was removed to* a new site at Towlaw, Darlington, 3 miles 

 northeast of its old position and 1,000 feet above se.a-level. 



Yale. — The initial volume of "Transactions of the Astronomical Ob- 

 servatory of Yale University," a valuable memoir by Dr. W. L. Elkin 

 upon the relative positions of the principal stars in the Pleiades, as de- 

 termined with the new heliometer, was published in 1887, the exi)ense 

 of printing having been borne by Professor Loomis. Upon the comple- 

 tion of this work Dr. Elkin took up the investigation of the parallaxes 

 of the ten first-magnitude stars in the northern hemisphere, and the re- 

 sults obtained we have already referred to under stellar parallax. The 

 heliometer has also been used for measures of various double stars an<l 

 of the diameters of the sun and Mars, and more recently in a triangu- 

 latiou of twenty-four stars within 100' of the north pole, and in ob- 

 servations of Iris for the determination of the solar parallax. Mr, Hall 

 has nearly completed the reduction of his work upon Titan, the expense 

 of which is defrayed by the Bache fund, and he has taken up the in- 

 vestigation of the jiarallaxes G ]> Cygni aiul Lalande 18115, 22. Mr. 

 O. T. Sherman, who had charge of the thermometric bureau, resigned in 

 November, 1886, and his work has since been carried on by Mr. f*eck. 

 The testing of time-pieces has been discontinued, but the timeservi(;e is 

 still maintained. The subscription of 551,000 annually for the supi)ort of 

 the work with the heliometer has been renewed for three years, begin- 

 ning with 1887. 



Zacateeas (iliej;/co).— Latitude +22° 46' 34."9, longitude «" oO"' 17.«5 

 west of Greenwich ; altitude 2,475'" (?)• Instruments: Equatorial of G 

 French inches aperture with astronomical and photographic objectives, 

 a small transit, altazimuth, clock, chronometer, spectroscope, and me- 

 teorological apparatus. Director, Ingeneiro Jos(^ A. y Bouilla. 



Ziirich (1886). — Dr. Kudolf Wolf has continued his observations of 

 sun-spots. 



