100 B. A. Gould— Algebraic Expression of the 
or the facility with which its value may be deduced for any 
value of the variable. It is unlikely that these advantages 
would escape the attention of any mathematician who might 
desire to give algebraic expression to the law of a periodic phe- 
nomenon. But it is generally known among meteorologists by 
the name of Bessel’s formula, not so much because it was first 
employed by that great astronomer in studying the diurnal 
oscillations of the barometer, as on account of the elaborate 
i 
In fact a general algebraic formula gives, as Bessel said, the 
result of observations expressed in the concisest form. To 
it is customary to represent the results of unknown laws. 
The only true object of scientific investigation is the deter- 
mination of principles and laws; and it may well be questioned 
what high aim can be attained by accumulating special results 
without such generalization. 
t is therefore with deep regret, as well as surprise, that we 
have seen the eminent director of the Physical Central Observa- 
tory of Russia, under whose immediate supervision stand all 
the physical observations officially made in that vast realm, 
express himself in terms like the following, which I quote from 
among very many other statements of the same sort: 
“How much time has been uselessly squandered in observations 
laboriously carried on through day and night, and in extended and 
far more useless calculations of the same by the Lambert-Bessel 
interpolation formula.” 
