Avuaust 4, 1899. ] 
ing and ventilating of buildings: Gilbert B. 
Morrison, Kansas City, Mo. 
Science and art in social development : 
John S. Clark, Boston, Mass. 
Moral tendencies of existing social condi- 
tions: Washington Gladden, Columbus, O. 
The manual element in education: C. M. 
Woodward, St. Louis, Mo. 
[Title to be announced. ] : 
Washington, D. C. 
_ Natural distribution, as modified by modern 
agriculture: John Hyde, Washington, D. C. 
Calculations of population in June, 1900: 
Henry Farquhar, Washington, D. C. 
Civil Service in the United States : 
Newcomb, Washington, D. C. 
Federal guaranties for maintaining repub- 
lican government in the States: Cora A. Ben- 
neson, Cambridge, Mass. 
W. B. Powell, 
H. T. 
DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
ON THE U. 8S. NAVAL OBSERVATORY. 
TuHE article on the U. S. Naval Observatory 
by Professor Asaph Hall, Jr., in the number of 
Scrence for July 14th, treats very effectively of 
some matters which astronomers have long 
wished to see altered at that institution. Many 
able line officers—D. D. Porter and others— 
have served there, as Professor Hall suggests. 
Any amount of such service, however, can no 
more make astronomers than the service of 
half-pay officers could do in Sir George Airy’s 
time, although at either Washington or Green- 
wich the habit of naval discipline was a help 
toward the formation of careful habits of ob- 
servation. Nor do I suppose that the earlier 
Greenwich assistants, Baldrey and others, were 
better astronomers at the start than those at 
Washington, who brought with them a knowl- 
edge of astronomy. 
In general we should find in the earlier vol- 
umes of the Washington observations precisely 
what we might expect if we knew the history 
of the establishment derived from the accessible 
data beginning with Gilliss’s first report, which 
contains, among other things, the description of 
the instruments procured, some of them anti- 
quated when they were constructed, others 
still used to some extent, others now replaced 
SCIENCE. 
153 
by haphazard constructions for which some one 
more or less acquainted with the matter is re- 
sponsible. 
In general it may be said that the success or 
failure of the observatory now in use will be 
more definitely decided in two or three years 
after it is better known what the later reports 
shall indicate as to the constructive ability of 
the mechanicians who have been employed to 
replace or remodel the work of Troughton and 
Simms, Pistor and Martius, Alvan G. Clark and 
the other makers at first selected. 
There is no doubt, I imagine, that the present 
astronomers at the observatory have had nearly 
carte blanche to do what they would, and we 
shall learn in a few years whether the immense 
amount of money expended on it has produced 
proportionate results, or is likely to appear to do 
so when they come forth to view. The excuses 
which were for several years offered for the delay 
in actually beginning the work on the zone—14° 
to—18° were not altogether satisfactory, as the 
astronomer whose observations of it are so 
quickly accomplished had been many years in 
service, and there is, so far as I am aware, 
nothing to show the necessity of the delay, ex- 
cept, if I may speak plainly, the entirely hap- 
hazard manner in which the U.S. Naval Observ- 
atory had been conducted from 1845 to the actual 
time of beginning observations on the zone. 
It is not, in my judgment, necessary to do 
more to greatly improve the institution than to 
follow Airy’s example in a simple matter of 
business according to the general custom at 
great observatories of the present day. 
The appointment of a strong and intelligent 
visiting committee, to include a few prominent 
officers of the army and navy, together with a 
number of eminent and intelligent civilians, 
would add greatly, almost without expense or 
trouble, to the definiteness of the plans and the 
steadiness of the execution of the work of the 
institution, as one can readily see from the late 
autobiography of Sir George Airy. 
TRUMAN HENRY SAFFORD. 
WILLIAMS CoLLEGE OBSERVATORY, July 19, 1899. 
CEREBRAL LIGHT. 
Dr. E. W. ScripruRe, in SCIENCE of June 
16th, gives an account of an experiment which 
