480 Letter from B. A. Gould. 
you the palpable demonstration that by nr and ingenuity 
something may be done even with a fractured len 
The great scientific importance of a study of the singular mete- 
orological relations of this country has made me unwilling to 
neglect any opportunity of furthering such investigations; ~~ 
though greatly indisposed to sacrifice any time which might 
devoted to astronomical ee With this feeling I have lost 
no opportunity of urging © e Government the high importance 
of an organized system of xibvebtclopieas observations, and a bill 
arts 
with the tes amg wee have provisionally undertaken 
the organization management of this Bureau, but with the 
hope of being able? elon long to resign it into some competent 
hands. 
I have also undertaken the Commissionership of Weights and 
Heastien; hoping thus to contribute something toward the further- 
ance of the great oo movement toward the unification 
of weights, measure currency. And I am glad to announce. 
that as a prelimina hes ep toward the practical inttodiction of the 
metric system, it has been ordere the Government that from 
and after Jan, Ist, 1873, all the measurements and records of the 
custom houses of the nation are to be made me metric units. At 
Loxsie every one of the 14 provinces has its own measures of 
length and capacity, each differing from the seas. and all differ- 
ing from those of pain, whence they were derived. It will not 
be a difficult matter, 1 am co Abe tcet to bring the metric units 
into practical use throughout tle 6 ntry. 
Of other scientific news I have but little to tell. A very beau- 
tiful meteor passed over the city of Tucuman at about 5 4. M., 
on the 21st August, dazzling those who were in the streets, and 
alarming them not a little. It exploded with a loud report 
motion is said to have — Ske the east, but no more definite 
information could be obta 
We are in the midst of me tempestuous but rainless sensch of 
the year. Two or three times a week, hurricanes pass 0 r the 
city, rendering the air opaque with dust and doing much injury to 
s and houses. This is one of our great troubles, in consequence 
of t the harm done to the instruments by the penetrating clouds of 
fine hard clay-dust. There h has been no rain for many months, and 
the bed of the Rio Primero is dry, below the upper part of the 
city; a not very uncommon phenoauaseet 
