CABLING OF ASTRONOMICAL INTELLIGENCE. 157 



there being no observation of a comet throughout an entire continent was still 

 very possible. 



To obviate this difficulty, Messrs. S. C. Chandler, jr., and John Ritchie, jr., 

 of the Bosto7i Scientific Society, have adapted a telegraphic code to the needs of 

 astronomy, and a first test of this code has just been made over the Atlantic cable. 

 The entire elements and ephemeris covering sixteen days have been successfully 

 sent across the ocean — those data computed at Boston being sent to the private 

 observatory of Lord Crawford, at Dun Echt, Scotland, and those computed at 

 Dun Echt have been successfully sent to Boston ; Boston and Dun Echt being 

 respectively the comet circular centres of the United States and England re- 

 spectively. 



The positions on which the Boston elements were based covered the unusually 

 short period of three days; and had one of these positions been doubtful, or had 

 the storm which has just passed across the country been but an hour earlier in 

 reaching Portland, Me., where the American position of May 5th was obtained, 

 the probabilities are that from American data alone an ephemeris could not have 

 been issued for more than a week after the time that it was actually circulated — 

 a considerable loss in the matter of actual observation Had this happened, 

 American astronomers could have depended upon European data, which were 

 published in a Special Circular of the Science Observer but a day later than their 

 own Boston calculations, and the same adverse circumstances that have a number 

 of times caused such trouble and disappointment, would have had no effect. 



The system adapted by Messrs. Chandler and Ritchie is more complete in 

 the data given, self-checking and less liable to error, and a complete set of ele- 

 ments, together with an ephemeris of four dates, together with the light curve, are 

 comprised in a message of sixteen words. By the same system the telegraph an. 

 ' nouncement can be made of the discovery of a comet in only seven words, in 

 place of sixteen by the system now in use, and should two of these seven words 

 be absolutely lost, there would still be sufficient data to render the finding of the 

 comet no more difficult than it now is in general with the data given by the sixteen 

 words of the system now in use. 



The successful result of the experiments with this code may be considered as 

 a long step onward in practical astronomy. 



An Alabama man announces that he does not believe th6 world rotates. He 

 says : "When two objects pass each other, going in opposite directions, they pass 

 very quickly, as, for instance, a bird flying west ought to pass objects upon the 

 earth much more rapidly than when it flies east. But this is not the case. A 

 bird passes no more rapidly going west than when it flies east; a ball thrown 

 against a house in a westerly direction does not rebound any more than when 

 thrown east. You may send a balloon up above your head and let it stand twen- 

 ty-four hours, and at the expiration of the twenty-four hours the balloon will be 

 directly over your head. I have studied the reasons given in astronomy, and 

 find nothing to refute my observations." 



