ADVERTISEMENT. 



In connection with the system of meteorological observations established by 

 the Smithsonian Institution about 1850, a series of meteorological tables was 

 compiled by Dr. Arnold Guyot, at the request of Secretary Henry, and was pub- 

 lished in 1852 as a volume of the Miscellaneous Collections. 



A second edition was published in 1857, and a third edition, with further 

 amendments, in 1859. 



Though primarily designed for meteorological observers reporting to the 

 Smithsonian Institution, the tables were so widely used by meteorologists and 

 physicists that, after twenty-five years of valuable service, the work was again re- 

 vised, and a fourth edition was published in 1884. 



In a few years the demand for the tables exhausted the edition, and it appeared 

 to me desirable to recast the work entirely, rather than to undertake its revision 

 again. After careful consideration I decided to publish the new work in three 

 parts : Meteorological Tables, Geographical Tables, and Physical Tables, each 

 representative of the latest knowledge in its field, and independent of the others ; 

 but the three forming a homogeneous series. 



Although thus historically related to Doctor Guyot's Tables, the present work 

 is so entirely changed with respect to material, arrangement, and presentation, 

 that it is not a fifth edition of the older tables, but essentially a new publication. 



The first volume of the new series of Smithsonian Tables (the Meteorological 

 Tables) appeared in 1893. The present volume, forming the second of the 

 series, the Geographical Tables, has been prepared by Professor R. S. Woodward, 

 formerly of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, but now of Columbia 

 College, New York, who has brought to the work a very wide experience both in 

 field work and in the reduction of extensive geodetic observations. 



S. P. Langlev, Secretary. 



