76 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



neglected. Under the successive superintendency of Fallows, 

 Henderson, and Sir Thomas Maclear, the latter of whom arrived 

 at the Cape in 1834, and of E. J. Stone, who arrived in 1870, the 

 work of the Observatory has been carried on under very adverse 

 circumstances, and the 'results thus far accomplished have some- 

 what disappointed the earlier expectation, and compare unfavora- 

 ■ of Gilliss and Gould, 

 alogue of star places; 

 i able to detect the parallax of Alpha Centauri, 

 and to produce a very valuable catalogue of very accurate places 

 of a number of stars.' Sir Thomas Maclear seems to have concen- 



arc of the meridian, of the value of which work there can be but 

 one opinion ; but this was allowed to disorganize the other work of 

 the observatory to such an extent that, as" Mr. Stone states, he in 

 1870, found himself with a very limited staff, unexpectedly con- 

 fronted with the results of 36 years of miscellaneous observations in 

 all stages of reduction, nothing completed, and nothing available for 

 publication and use, without a considerable expenditure of time and 

 labor. Under these circumstances, he has judged it best to pay 

 the later years of observation, and has com- 



pilQdl c 



similar in all respects to the Greenwich instrument, which has 

 been in use since 1851. The Cape Catalogue of Mr. Stone, is 

 accompanied by a comparison of the right ascensions of the clock 

 stars as observed at Greenwich and the Cape of" Good Hope, by 

 means of which comparison some systematic errors are brought to 

 light, which are, however, very small in extent, and may be them- 

 sehes attributed to the effect on the clock of rapid changes of 

 temperature in the evenings during December, January, and Feb- 

 ruary. The latitude of the observatory must, he thinks, still be 

 considered as uncertain. 



The printing of the work, which was done at Cape Town, 

 does not suffer by comparison with similar work in England. 



-^. Observatori/ in the Pyrenees. — An observatory has been estab- 

 lished on the Pic de Midi, similar to that on the Puy de Dome, 

 and chiefly through the efforts of General Nansouty. — I? Institute 



IV. Miscellaneous Scientific Intelligence. 

 1. Reports on the Meteorological, Magnetic, and other Ohsen^a- 

 tions of the Dominion of Canada for the calendar year ending 

 Deceinher 81, 1874.— In this volume the Minister of Marine and 

 Fisheries, Honorable A. J. Smith, has given in full a reprint of the 

 tri-daily simultaneous observations niade at a large number of 

 stations throughout the Dominion of Canada, together with tables 

 of monthly and annual means, resultant direction, and velocity of 

 the vnwA, etc. In consideration of the exceedingly small annual 



