490 Trans. Acad. Sct. of St. Louis. 
Il. THE LATITUDE. 
The first observations for accurate determination of the 
latitude of this Observatory were made by Professor Joseph 
Ficklin in July, 1882. These observations were made by 
Talcott’s Method and the instrument used was a zenith tele- 
scope belonging to the U.S. C. &G. Survey. The latitude 
was again determined by myself in July, 1891, by observing 
the transits of stars across the prime vertical with the two- 
inch transit instrument described above. 
REDUCTION OF PROFESSOR FICKLIN’S OBSERVATIONS. 
_ Soon after taking charge of the Observatory on July Ist, 
1890, I found a partial record of these zenith telescope 
observations by Prof. Ficklin. There was also an incomplete 
record of Prof. Ficklin’s reductions of the observations. All 
the records were on loose pieces of paper, some of which 
had been lost. 
Twenty pairs of stars had been observed on three nights, 
July 13, 14 and 24, 1882. The original records of observa- 
tions made on the last two nights were found, but the record 
for July 13th was missing. The computed results of observa- 
tions for level division and micrometer revolution were found, 
but the original records had been lost, and a small fragment 
of the computations which remained gave no clue to any of 
the observations for determination of these constants. 
The pairs of stars had been selected from the star catalogue 
of the U. S. C. & G. Survey and the declinations of the 
stars had been taken from the same source. (See U.S. C. 
& G. Survey Report for 1876, Appendix No. 7.) 
On examining these observations it seemed to me worth 
while to re-reduce them using more accurate star places than 
were available when they were reduced by Prof. Ficklin. 
No statement with reference to the instrument used was 
found among these records, but when looking over some old 
letters on file in the observatory, I discovered that the 
instrument was Zenith Telescope No. 3 of the U. S.C. &G- 
