ASTKONOMICAL PHENOMENA AND PEOGRESS. 



55 



fer upon you the Golden Honorary Medal of the Em- 

 pire. The value of the gift is enhanced by the cir- 

 cumstance that this medal is given very rarely, and 

 only for quite extraordinary merit. You and Kepsold 

 are the first who will receive it from the present Em- 

 peror, Alexander III. This circumstance produces 

 some delay in the transmission, as the Emperor desires 

 that the medal shall bear his portrait, and not those 

 of his predecessors. Therefore, the stamp must be 

 newly engraved. When that be done you will receive 

 the medal through the Russian minister at Washing- 

 ton. Very truly yours, 



OTTO STRUVE. 



NOTE. Only the object-glass (thirty inches in diameter) 

 wa made by the Clarks, the mounting and accessories hav- 

 ing been done by the Messrs. Bepsold, of Hamburg, which 

 explains the dual prizes. 



The Cipher Code -System. A brief, accurate, 

 and inexpensive code - system of telegraphing 

 and cabling announcements of cometary and 

 other astronomical discoveries has been a long- 

 felt desideratum. To telegraph to Europe in its 

 completeness the elements of a coinetary orbit, 

 the dates from which those elements were 

 computed, together with an ephemeris, though 

 giving only four positions of the object in 

 right ascension in hours, minutes, and sec- 

 onds of time, in declination in degrees, min- 

 utes, and seconds of arc, and several other 

 necessary data, became an expense too great 

 to be borne. And, in addition, the dispatch, 

 in a majority of cases, would, by errors on the 

 part of the telegraph operator or of the tran- 

 scriber perhaps of both be entirely worthless 

 when received, with no means of correction at 

 hand. To remedy these defects, Prof. Seth 0. 

 Chandler, Jr., and Mr. John Ritchie, Jr., both 

 of Harvard College Observatory, Cambridge, 

 Mass., have invented a cipher code - system, 

 the utility and perfect working of which has, 

 after many trials, been fully recognized and 

 adopted by the astronomers of both hemi- 

 spheres. A complete description of the system 

 and of its workings was published by the in- 

 ventors in "Science Observer,' 1 vol. iii, Nos. 

 9 and 10 (double No.). As briefly as is con- 

 sistent with a proper comprehension of the 

 subject, the general plan is as follows: The 

 book from which the ciphers for this code are 

 obtained is " Worcester's Comprehensive Dic- 

 tionary," revised edition of 1876, containing 

 more than 390 pages, which has generally one 

 hundred or more words on a page, rendering 

 it possible to express any whole number from 1 

 to 39,000 by a single word. Thus, for example, 

 27,348 can be expressed by the word "lop," 

 it being the 48th word on page 273. In like 

 manner, 268 18' may be signified by the 18th 

 word on page 268 ("level"). April 14 d - 10 h - 

 48 m - = April 14"' 45, being the 134th day of the 

 year (135th of leap-year), may be represented 

 by the 45th word on page 134 (" crush "), etc. 

 In transmitting a cometary ephemeris and the 

 elements of its orbit, Greenwich mean time 

 is to be understood. For declination, north 

 polar distance is in all cases to be used, to avoid 

 the distinction of north and south ; inclination 

 is to be reckoned from to 180 ; perihe- 

 lion distance to be given directly and not by its 



Time of perihelion passage 



Distance of perihelion from node 



Longitude of node 



Inclination 



Perihelion distance 



logarithm ; distance of perihelion from node, 

 instead of longitude of perihelion, is to be em- 

 ployed, and right ascension is to be given in arc 

 instead of time. 



One of the excellences of this code-system 

 is the introduction of a control-word by means 

 of which the receiver is enabled to detect the 

 incorporation of an error in the message re- 

 ceived. It is determined by adding together 

 the numbers expressing, 1, the time of perihe- 

 lion passage; 2, distance of perihelion from 

 node; 3, longitude of node; 4, inclination; 

 and 5, perihelion distance. The amount re- 

 sulting to be divided by four, in order that the 

 number obtained may be always within the 

 limit of a book of 400 pages ; for example : 



= 811 91 



= 99 34 



= 300 50 



= 7 22 



= 110 49 



Sum = 4)S29~46 



Control-word = 20T 86 



= 36th word on page 201 (" gleby "). 



Care must be taken in adding the above to 

 supply a cipher as the second digit from the 

 right, when the minutes are fewer than ten, or 

 when the decimal of a day contains hundreds 

 only. Thus, 135 5' is represented by 135 05, 

 and 147 d 03 by 147 03. 



Perhaps the practical working of the system 

 can not be better or more forcibly illustrated 

 than by the insertion here of a seven teen- word 

 cablegram sent from Harvard College Observa- 

 tory to the observatory of Lord Crawford, at 

 Dun Echt, Scotland : " Outshine, stigmatic, in- 

 tercession, appeasableness, auctionary." Con- 

 trol-word, estreat 2d. "Balance, Occident, at- 

 tain, ordnance, assent, pachyderm, around, 

 paring, archetype, fishmonger, purulent." This 

 message, giving the elements and ephemeris of 

 Pechule's comet, when translated is, in detail, 

 shown on the next page. 



The message, though consisting of but seven- 

 teen words, conveyed all of the information 

 included in the tables, viz., the elements of the 

 orbit, the dates of the observations from which 

 the elements were calculated, a control-word to 

 insure correctness of interpretation, an ephem- 

 eris of four positions, and the light-variation 

 corresponding to the ephemeris. 



The dictionary proper begins at page 41, 

 and, to obviate the difficulty arising from the 

 omission of the first forty pages, it has been 

 proposed to supply the pages from 400 to 441 

 inclusive, though in all cases the number is to 

 be considered what it really is ; i. e., without 

 the 4. Thus, O d \53 is to be indicated by the 

 53d word on page 400 ("smear "), and 13 26' 

 by the 26th word on page 413 (" still "). When 

 it is desired to express a whole number of days 

 without a fraction, as 215 d -.00, or a whole num- 

 ber of degrees without minutes, as 265 00', the 

 cipher code fails, as there is no Oth word on 

 any page. When this happens, if the first 

 word on the page be used, but slight error will 

 accrue, and will, in almost every case, give re- 



