606 Th e Smithsonian Institution 



sound theoretical knowledge of Doctor Draper, and his very 

 extended experience in certain fields, are nowhere better ex- 

 emplified than in the memoir, of which only a brief summary 

 can be given. 



PENDULUM OBSERVATIONS 



THE building of the Smithsonian Institution was early chosen 

 as a suitable station for the determination of the force of 

 gravity, and it has been used by the officers of the Coast 

 Survey (Charles S. Peirce, Erasmus D. Preston, Edwin 

 Smith, and others) and by foreign scientists for this purpose. 



AID TO "THE ASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL" 



IN the year 1849, Doctor B. A. Gould began the publication 

 of The Astronomical Journal, a periodical devoted solely to 

 the interests of astronomy, and issued always at a loss. 

 From the first the Institution has subscribed for a number of 

 copies, which are regularly distributed to foreign corre- 

 spondents, and this original subscription is still continued. 



THE following bibliographies relating to astronomy and astro- 

 physics have been published by the Institution. 



" Index Catalogue of Books and Memoirs relating to Neb- 

 ulae and Clusters, etc.," by Edward S. Holden (1877), in 

 " Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections," Volume xiv. 



"A Synopsis of the Scientific Writings of Sir William 

 Herschel," prepared by Edward S. Holden and Charles S. 

 Hastings, in the Smithsonian Report for 1880. 



"Index to the Literature of the Spectroscope," by Alfred 

 Tuckerman (1888), in the "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Col- 

 lections," Volume xxxn. 



