LXVIII ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
The determination of geographic positions has been an important 
branch of the work, both before and since the building of the new 
observatory. Latitude observations according to a systematic scheme 
were made under the Department of the Interior, in connection with the 
surveys of Dominion Lands in 1875 and following years. In 1885 tele- 
graphic longitude determinations were added to afford reference points 
for the survey of lands in the Railway Belt of British Columbia. Since 
then a demand has gradually grown up for the determination of 
geographical co-ordinates for the betterment of maps, the fixing of refer- 
ence points for surveys of various kinds, ete. Among the more im- 
portant longitude determinations undertaken have been that between 
Montreal and Ottawa, in 1896, and that between Ottawa and Vancouver 
in 1900, with recent cross connections with the United States system of 
longitudes, from Ottawa to Harvard, and from Vancouver to Seattle. In 
1903 and 1904, the chain of longitudes was extended by Messrs. Klotz 
and Werry across the Pacific following the line of the Cable via Fanning 
Island, Suva, and Norfolk Island to Australia, and New Zealand, com- 
pleting ‘thereby the first (in point of date of actual observation), 
longitude circuit of the globe. 
In 1906 a determination of the 141st meridian for the purposes of 
the convention of that year relating to the International Boundary Line 
in that quarter was made by Messrs. Klotz and McDiarmid of the © 
observatory staff in conjunction with Mr. Smith of the United States 
Coast and Geodetic Survey, these three observers being placed respec- 
tively at Vancouver, Boundary and Fort Egbert, Alaska. The point 
or. the 141st meridian (on the Yukon River) was thus determined both 
ways, direct from Vancouver, and also from the chain of longitudes 
previously determined by the Coast and Geodetic Survey, from Seattle, 
via Sitka, Valdes, and Egbert. 
From 1885 to the present time, the geographical positions of 53 
points have been determined, of which 17 were determined in 1905, and 
5, including the Yukon longitude above mentioned, in 1906. Arrange- 
ments have been made for observation during the present season at five 
points in Yukon Territory and at a large number of stations in Ontario, 
Quebec and the Maritime Provinces. 
_ 2. Astrophysics. 
The work so far accomplished on the physical side of astronomy 
has chiefly been along the line of stellar spectroscopy. One particular 
branch of this, the determination of stellar radial velocities, seems to 
offer larger opportunity for useful work than any other branch of 
astronomical science. It is not only new, having been brought into 
effective operation by Campbell, of Lick Observatory, less than ten years 
