18 THE SMITHSONIAN INSIITUTION. 



No work extant answers tl>e sarne purpose with the one referred to, which ha? 

 heuce become a general standard of reference, the constant demand for it as well 

 in Europe as America having required the printing of several successive editions. 



The results of the reducti^^ns for five years previous to 1860 have been published 

 in two volumes of nearly 2,000 quarto pages, containing a mass of materials of 

 great value in determining the average temperature, fall of rain, barometrical 

 pressure, moisture, direction of the wind, and time of various periodical pheno- 

 mena relative to plants, animals, &c. 



In addition to these large and important volumes, other works have been pub- 

 lished by the Institution which have had a marked influence on the progress of 

 meteorology. Among these may be mentioned the works of Professor Coffin, on 

 the winds of the Northern Hemisphere; of Mr. Chappelsmith, on a tornado in 

 Illinois; of Professor Loomis, on a great storm which pervaded both America and 

 Europe; the reduced observations for twenty-eight years of Professor Caswell, at 

 Providence, Rhode Island; of Dr. Smith, for twenty years in Arkansas; of Dr. 

 Kane and Captain McClintock, in the Arctic Seas; on the heat and light of the 

 sun at diS"erent points, by Mr. Meech; on the secular period of the aurora, by 

 Professor Olmsted; the occurrence of auroras in the Arctic regions, by Mr. P. 

 Force, &c. 



Besides these, a series of meteorological essays embodying man}' of the results 

 obtained from the investigations at the Institution has been prepared by the Secre- 

 tary, and been published in the Agricultural Reports of the Patent Office. 



Astronomy. — The Institution has advanced the science of astronomy both by its 

 publications and the assistance rendered to observers. To facilitate astronomical 

 observations it prepared and published for six years an annual list of occultations 

 of the principal stars by the moon, and printed and distributed a series of tables 

 for determining the perturbations of the planetary motions, the object of which 

 determination is to facilitate the calculation of the places of the heavenly bodies. 

 These tables have accomplished th-3 desired end, saving to the practical astronomer 

 an immense amount of tedious a:nd monotonous labor. 



The name of the Institution has been favorably connected with the history of 

 the interesting discovery of the planet Neptune. From a few of the first obser- 

 vations which had been made on this planet, Mr. Sears C. Walker calculated its 

 approximate orbit, and by this means tracing its path through its whole revolution 

 of IGG years, he was enabled to carry it backward until it fell among a cluster of 

 stars, accurately mapped by Lalande, towards the close of the last century. After 

 minute inspection he was led to conclude that one of the stars which had been 

 observed by Ijalande in 1795, was the planet Neptune. He was thus supplied 

 with the amount of its motion for upwards of fifty years, from which he deduced 

 a much more perfect orbit, and was enabled to construct an ephemeris giving the 

 place of the planet for several years in succession. These investigations, so inter- 

 esting to astronomy and honorable to this country, were prosecuted and published 

 at the expense of the Smithsonian Institution. 



