464 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



BOOK NOTICES. 



Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1882, Spencer F. 

 Baird, Secretary. 8vo., pp. 855. Government Printing Office, 1884. 



This report, though, as usual with all government documents, nearly two 

 years behindhand in being published, is really an exceedingly valuable work. 

 It comprises the Proceedings of the Board of Regents for the January meeting, 

 1883, Report of the Executive Committee, the Annual Report of the Secretary, 

 and the General Appendix; which last presents a record of recent progress in 

 the principal departments of science and special memoirs, original and selected, 

 of interest to collaborators and correspondents of Ihe institution, teachers and 

 others engaged in the promotion of knowledge. The various departments of 

 science have been ably presented by Prof. Baird himself. Prof. E. S. Holden, 

 Prof. T. Sterry Hunt, Lieut. F. M. Green, Prof. Cleveland Abbe, Prof. Geo. 

 F. Barker, Prof. H. Carrington Bolton, Prof. E. S. Dana, Prof. W. G. Farlow, 

 Prof. Theodore Gill and Prof. O. T. Mason. All of these gentlemen are experts 

 in their several lines of study, and the reader need look no further for a com- 

 plete statement of the progress made in each department during the year 1882. 



If these reports could be published with reasonable promptness they would 

 be of the greatest value to students and others ; as it is, they are usually laid 

 upon library shelves as mere works of reference. 



Publications of the Washburn Observatory of -ihe University of Wis- 

 consin, Volume II, Octavo, pp. 400. Democrat Printing Co., Madison, 

 Wisconsin, 1884. 



This observatory, founded by the late Hon. C. C. Washburn, is under the 

 directorship of Prof, E. S. Holden, of the U. S. Naval Observatory. Its equip- 

 ment of instruments is very complete and has been largely increased since the 

 publication of the first volume, notably by the purchase of a Repsold Meridian 

 Circle at a cost of over four thousand dollars, to a description of which some 

 fifty pages are devoted. Also by the purchase of a Sidereal clock, a Howard 

 mean time clock, a six-inch equatorial telescope, and a number of minor instru- 

 ments. Besides these, the library has received quite an accession, and now con- 

 sists of about 1,000 volumes and 600 pamphlets. 



The work of the Observatory has been extensive and various, both astro- 

 nomical and meteorological, the latter department having been added in August 

 1883, when the instruments, etc, of the signal service station at Madison 

 were transferred to it. Few obser\^atories in the country are superior to the 

 Washburn either in the number and value of its astronomical instruments or the 

 amount and quality of the work done. 



