46 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 
After minute inspection he was led to conclude that one of the stars 
which had been observed by Lalande in 1795 was the planet Nep- 
tune. He was thus supplied with the amount of its motion for up- 
wards 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 
interesting to astronomy and honorable to this country, were prose- 
cuted and published at the expense of the Institution, the name of 
which will be further connected with the planet Neptune by the pub- 
lication, now in press, of a new discussion of all the observations which 
have been made on this body for the last fifteen years. This work, 
which is by Professor Newcomb, of the United States navy, will 
furnish not only the means of determining the exact position of Nep- 
tune for years to come, but also the data for ascertaining whether it 
is affected by other bodies than those now known to astronomers. 
To render more generally accessible to practical astronomers in 
this country the theory of the motion of the heavenly bodies hy the 
celebrated Gauss, the Institution shared the expense of publishing a 
translation of this treatise by Admiral C. H. Davis, U. S. N., from 
the Latin. It furnishes a complete system of formulas for computing 
the movements of a body in any of the curves belonging to the class 
of conic sections, and a general method of determining the orbit of a 
planet or a comet from three observations, as seen from the earth. 
For a number of years aid was afforded to the publicatian of Gould’s 
American Astronomical Journal, which rendered good service to the 
science by making promptly known to foreign observers the results of 
the labors of their contemporaries in America. It has also had re- 
duced by Mr. Charles A. Schott, and published at its own expense, 
the astronomical observations made by Dr. Kane in the arctic regions, 
and has now in hand those which were made in the same regions by 
Dr. Hayes. 
Congress having authorized in 1849 an astronomical expedition 
under Lieutenant Gilliss to the southern hemisphere for the purpose 
of determining the parallax of the planets, and consequently their 
distance from the sun, by observations on Venus and Mars, accident- 
ally failed to make the appropriation for instruments. This omission 
was supplied by the Institution, which was subsequently indemnified 
for the expense by the Chilian government. 
In the observation of all the larger solar eclipses which have hap- 
pened since the date of its organization the Institution has actively 
