REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 45 
as well in Europe as America having required the printing of several 
successive editions. 
The results of the reductions for five years previous to 1860 have 
been published in two volumes of nearly 2,000 quarto pages, con- 
taining 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 phenomena relative to 
plants, animals, &c. 
In addition to these large and important volumes, other works 
have been published 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 different 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 many of 
the results obtained from the investigations at the Institution has 
been prepared by the Secretary, and been published in the agricul- 
tural 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 de- 
termination is to facilitate the calculation of the places of the heavenly 
bodies. These tables have accomplished the desired end, saving to 
the practical astronomer an immense amount of tedious and monoto- 
nous labor. 
The name of the Institution has been favorably connected with the 
history of the interesting discovery of the planet Neptune. Froma 
few of the first observations 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 166 years he was en- 
abled to carry it backward until it fell among a cluster of stars, ace 
curately mapped by Lalande, towards the close of the last century. 
