6oo The Smithsonian Institution 



in this respect and in others, and at least a passing record of 

 its service should be made in this place. 



ANNOUNCEMENTS OF ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES 



IN 1871, Doctor C. H. F. Peters, Director of the Hamilton 

 College Observatory, addressed a letter to the Secretary of 

 the Smithsonian Institution, asking that the Institution should 

 act as a central office for communicating by telegraph dis- 

 coveries of planets and comets. Steps were immediately 

 taken by Professor Henry to arrange for such service, and 

 from 1873 to 1883 it was carried out under the auspices of 

 the Institution. 



Great pains were taken by Professor Henry and Professor 

 Baird to obtain the opinions of astronomers as to the best 

 form of message. 



These telegrams were useful to American science, in spite of 

 many errors which arose mainly from the fact that the Institu- 

 tion had no astronomer to serve as critic and editor. The 

 telegrams received by the Institution from discoverers were 

 very often wrongly worded, and there was no control. 



These telegrams were widely disseminated by Associated 

 Press despatches ; and in a more detailed and scientific form 

 by the circulars of the Boston Scientific Society, edited by 

 Mr. John Ritchie, from 1879 onwards. Mr. Ritchie and 

 Doctor S. C. Chandler, in 1881, devised a special cipher-code 

 for transmitting such telegrams, which was submitted to, but 

 not accepted by, the Smithsonian Institution. During 1882- 

 1 883 arrangements were concluded which resulted in the trans- 

 fer of this service to the Harvard College Observatory. 1 



1 See the " Smithsonian Report," 1883, page The Astronomical Journal, Volume vi, page 



33, and The Science Observer, Volume IV, 189 (1888), and The Publications of the 



P a g e 33 (1883), for the contemporary and Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 1896, 



official records of this transfer. See also Volume vni, pages 109 and 179. 



