480 Scientific Intelligence. 



as the Benjamin Apthorp Gould fund, the proceeds of the fund to 

 be used at the discretion of a board of three directors, two of 

 whom must be members of the Academy, in furthering astronomi- 

 cal research. This fund was later formally accepted by the Acad- 

 emy ; the following directors were appointed by Miss Gould : 

 Prof. Lewis Boss of Albany, Dr. Seth C. Chandler of Cambridge 

 and Prof. Asaph Hall of Washington. 



2. Cordoba Photographs : Photographic Observations of Star- 

 Clusters, from impressions made at the Argentine National 

 Observatory, measured and computed by Benjamin Apthorp 

 Gould, Lynn, Mass., 1897. — The growing importance of astro- 

 nomical photography is manifested in this extensive contribution 

 to the subject, which completes the long array of results derived 

 by Dr. Gould from his southern sojourn. It contains the results 

 of the measurement of 177 plates, taken at Cordoba with an 

 equatorial of 11 J inches aperture, of which the original objective 

 was that first devised and used by Rutherfurd, but having been 

 broken on the journey to South America was replaced by a simi- 

 lar one by the same maker, Mr. Fitz. The objects photographed 

 were mainly star-clusters and richer portions of the southern 

 hemisphere, 37 districts being included in the present discussion, 

 and some 27 yet remain to be computed. In all, the positions of 

 9144 stars are furnished, referred to 78 centers by polar coordi- 

 nates ; these are then converted into differences of right ascension 

 and declination. For each plate four constants are determined 

 hy reference to known star-places, these being mainly derived 

 from the Cordoba meridian observations. The four constants 

 determined for each plate are the corrections to the rectangular 

 coordinates of the origin and to the adopted scale-value and 

 position-angle zero. This method seems amply adequate for the 

 degree of accuracy aimed at, and the work will doubtless prove a 

 most valuable addition to our knowledge of the southern heavens. 



The volume is edited by Dr. S. C. Chandler, to whom this duty 

 was confided after the death of Dr. Gould, who most lamentably 

 was not to see the finished work, though the computations and 

 discussion had all but completely passed through his hands. 



w. L. E. 



3. JS T ove?nber Meteors, 1897. — A watch was kept at the Yale 

 Observatory on the night of Saturday, >lov. 13, for 6 hours com- 

 mencing at 11 p.m., by Mr. Brown (tor one half of the time) and 

 Mr. Smith, who exposed plates in the photographic apparatus. 

 In all 30 meteors were seen during these hours, only 5 of which 

 were conformable to the Leonid radiant. Only one of these fell 

 in the area covered by the cameras and this was not bright enough 

 to impress on the plates, which were much fogged by the moon, 

 then only 4^ days past full. The nights of Nov. 14, 15 and 16 

 were completely overcast here at New Haven. w. l. e. 



4. Sixteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American 

 Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1894- 

 95; by J. W. Powell, Director, 326 pp., with 81 plates and 83 

 figures in the text. Washington, 1897. — The sixteenth annual 



