The apparatus was at once put to use in the several telegraphic stations of the coast survey; and one of the circumstances which made Mr. G. P. Bond’s tour in Europe a notable one was its exhibition for the first time there. It was shown in operation and explained in a lecture by him before the Royal Astronomical Society, and also at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Through the urgency of Sir David Brewster and others it was set up in the great exhibition at London in 1851, where a medal was awarded for it. It had the highest award of the Massachusetts Mechanic Association, a gold medal. It was adopted at the Greenwich observatory soon after Mr. Bond’s exhibition of his model, and speedily throughout Europe. Soon after the electrical experiments of 1848 at the observatory the wire was put into use to transmit to Boston and different railway points, signals giving the true local time, these signals being electrically responsive to the movement of an astronomical clock in the observatory, the method of transmission being that of the “circuit interrupter.” This system was at once adopted in England, wire connections being made with a clock in Greenwich Observatory. This time service of the Harvard Observatory, though continued during the intermediate period, was not organized as at present until 1872. In 1852 the officers of Harvard Observatory co-operated with Captain Charles Wilkes in experiments for ascertaining the velocity of sound under different atmospheric conditions. In these tests cannon were fired near the observatory, at the arsenal in Watertown, at the navy yard in Charlestown and at Fort Independence in the harbor, the central observing point being the cupola of the State House in Boston, where Captain Wilkes took his station. These experiments had immediate reference to a reduction into proper form of data obtained by the exploring expedition, wherein Captain Wilkes had caused surveys of islands and groups in remote seas to be made by sound. In these surveys, distances between points whence angles were projected were determined by the firing of cannon at those points. In 1855 an endowment of $10,000 was made by ex-President Quincy as a memorial of his father, Josiah Quincy, a patriot of the revolution. This fund was specifically applied to the publication of annals of the observatory. The first volume was issued in 1856 and comprised a review of the work of the preceding years, so that the series of which it is the initial number makes a continuous record from the beginning. The series now numbers nearly 25 volumes. The decease of Prof. W. C. Bond occurred Jan. 29, 1859. IV.