derful strides in the manufacture and export of scientific apparatus principally to the splendid work of the Imperial Physico-Technical Institute. The recognition of this fact on the part of English manufacturers was one of the most potent influences which last year induced Parliament to provide for the establishment of a similar bureau. Russia, about to adopt the metric system, has also established a Central Chamber of Weights and Measures, with Professor Mendelejeff at its head. At the International Congress of Physicists, held at Paris last summer, Professor Pellat read a paper on the National Physical Laboratory as a factor in the industrial development of a country, which created such a strong impression that a motion was unanimously passed in favor of the establishment of such institutions in all countries not already provided therewith. The United States, far in the van in so many respects, cannot afford to lag behind in a matter of such vital and universally recognized importance.
That the United States is now ready to take a place beside Germany in the production of scientific instruments is demonstrated by what has already been accomplished in the case of astronomy. In proof of this statement we may refer to the recently-issued catalogue from the works of Messrs. Warner & Swasey, at Cleveland, Ohio. This is a tangible witness that the United States is, in respect of the making of astronomical instruments of all sorts, quite out of the leading strings of the Old World. The work here exhibited is strictly of the first class. The instruments are, in the first place, designed so as to fit the uses to which they are to be put, not only in their general form, but also in their details. The execution of the mechanical work is also of the very highest quality. Lastly, we note the very significant fact that the designs of the instruments are, in a high degree, elegant and artistic. It is a far cry from the stone-adze of the paleolithic man to the Ferrera blade; and the evolution carries a lesson with it. Weapons and tools must first of all be fitted to their uses. Their design must be appropriate to the desired end. After the end is plainly comprehended improvements are made in the mechanical processes of manufacture. Last of all it is the desire of the artisan to become an artist— to make his work beautiful. The evolution of the weapon and of the tool follows laws which govern that of the scientific instrument also. Long centuries elapsed between the quadrants of Alexandria, Samarkand and Uraniborg, and the elegant designs of the instruments of the great observatory of Pulkowa. It seemed that almost the last word had been said when Struve and Repsold installed their joint productions in the Imperial Observatory, lavishly endowed by the Russian Emperor. It is highly significant, then, to find their work surpassed in a distant country, across the ocean—in the country that hardly possessed an astronomical establishment of any sort when Pulkowa was founded. And it is gratifying and startling to note that two New England mechanics without hereditary training, advised by our own astronomers, have excelled the work of the famous house of Repsold, now in its third generation, advised and counseled, as it has been, by the most skilled astronomers of Europe.
A study of the catalogue in question will show that in all respects—in general design, in detail and in artistic beauty—instruments now made in this country are superior to any made in the world. The book referred to is entirely composed of plates, showing equatorial mountings, micrometers, chronographs, transits, zenith telescopes, alt-azimuths, meridian-circles and dividing-engines made at Cleveland; and of views of observatories in various parts of the w r orld furnished with instruments or domes from the same works. The observations made by some of the instruments referred to at the United States Naval
