The daily national Whig. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1847-1849, 1849-01-10
ASTRONOMICAL ELEGRAPHIC
CLOCKS.

A letter has been sent to Congress by the
Secretary Of the Treasury, concerning Re-
port Of the Superintendent of the U. States
Coast Survey, Dr. Bache, calling attention
to report by Assistant Sears G.. Walker,
relative to new process in use in the Sur
vey, for printing the dates OF Astronomical
events.
From the report 81 Assistant Walker, it
appears that the ordinary fillet of registering
paper is graduated at the rate Of sec
ond of time to an inch, by mean of an
astronomical clock, put in connexion with
with the line The mechanical arrangement
for etfecting the graduation is the invention
Of DR.. John Locke, of Cincinnati, well
known to the world for his invention and dis
coveries in magnetism and electromagnetic,
An Englishman, Mr.. Wheatstone, and
German, Mr.. Steinheil, have invented an
instrument for making several clocks on
teegraphc line mark the same time but
the American application Of it to the gradu-
alton Of the running fllet ofpaper is new
The seconds are denoted by indented lines
Of about nine-tenths Of an inch in length.
A short blank space Of one-tenth enables
the commencement Of a new line, or new
second to be marked with certainty.
An astronomical clock OF the most deli
cate construction, without injury to its per-
lormance, may supply ct once all the regis
tiers on line Of any dimensions, from few
feet to the whole distance from Passport to
| New Orleans, or from Behring's straits to
California. The closed circuit gives oppor-
| tunity for person at any Office on the line,
by simply playing, piano fashion, on key,
to imprint the date Of the tap on all the reg
sters, true to a hundredth part Of second.
The report gives full account Of all the
uses TO which the invention may be applied,
in coast survey operations, forlongitudes be-
tween the stations, and for the general pur-
poses Of astronomy.
| instruments are described, suited TO the
new process Of manipulation, which is now
| the word instead Of astronomical observation.
The net work Of spider lines in the eye
piece Of tral sit instrument is composed of
some seven, nine, or eleven talies, or dis
tinct groups Of i've lines each When
star in southing passes over one Of these
wires, the astronomer taps on the break cir
cult key, and imprints on the graduated pa
per corresponding break line space. A
single southing of d star gives some nine or
more TALES Of these imprints All is done
in the ordinary time taken for a single tally
by the common process, which is all that
one southing gives by the old method.
The astronomer by the coast survey pro-
cess never sees the clock, nor hears its beats.
In fact, the clock may be thousand miles
off, so as TO make both those operations par
! ticularly inconvenient Neither does he
waste his time in writing down the work,
but prints, as said, some nine or more tall
lies at one souihing, each of which is worth
more than the single tally formerly m use.
The report goes on to say that one years
work at the transit instrument with this pro-
cess is worth some ten years work by the
common mode. Where catalogues are now
made by transit over a single wire in one
evening, as at Munich, Bonn and Washing
ton, tally may be printed in the same time,
by the new method, with some tive-fod in
crease OF accuracy over the method in use
out Of the survey.
II is estimated that the coast survey meth
cd will be Of great use to Lieutenant Giss
4 in our national expedition to Chill. He pro-
poses to measure the suns distance from the
earth BY the parallax Of Mars. The latter
he intends to measure by the relative tram
sits Of a fixed star and the planet remote
from the meridian east and west. Instead
Of some fifty measures per night, this meth
cd will give him five hundred il he wishes,
and each one better than any Of the fifty
ordinary ones.
doubt whether the astronomer royal Of
England will be as thankful to us as he.
ought to be for shelving him how to turn out
every year catalogue Of right ascensons
as good as those which he now takes ten
y ears to make,-Bahimore Sun,