Morning journal and courier., 1893-07-11

The Board of Managers of the Yale
 Observatory Make Their Annual
 Report - Thermometric Bureau
 Advance in Value of the Observa-
 tOry,s Lands.
 The report for the year '92-'9S of the board of managers of the Yale observatory to the president and fellows of Yale uni versity contains interesting facts The secretary's report Is as follows:
 YALE UNIVERSITY OBSERVATORY,
 June IT, 1893.
 To the Board of Managers-Gentlemen l have the honor to report for the year ending with May 31, 1893, as follows:
 GROUNDS NORTH OF cANNER STREET.
 Pending the consideration, by your board, of the recommendations heretofore made, little has been done here. Beyond the completion of the belt of shade trees elms-in the sidewalk about this tract, no expenditure has been incurred in the way of improvement; and in the way of main tenance, no more than was necessary to protect the woods from injury, by the timely and careful burning of the leaves and brush, and to prevent the stoppage of the drains and sewers by this material brought to their openings by the heavy rains.
 Applications have been made for the purchase of building lots on the present street fronts at prices formerly considered fair, and for some of the interior lots, if the proposed layout, or something like it, should be finally adopted. Nearly all the property on the Hil1house ridge has been taken off the market, as far out as Gamer street, and the recent increase in the fscil- ities for access by the construction of the al,~ ok~ stitution of electric motors, with more freouent trips, on the Whitney avenue street railway, has advanced the value of all the property beyond.
 A large number of new books have been added to the library.
 The report concerning the shermometric bureau is as follows: MT. 0. B. Peck has continued to make the comparisons of ther- mometers except during short illness in the winter, when MT. A. 0. Alexander, as- sistant in physics in the Shelf sld Scientific school, was kind enough to make such com psrisons as could not wait fer Mr. Peck's recovery.
 It continues to be true that only a small percentage of the instruments sold are sent to us for certifcation. It is presumably true, also, that those which are sent here for certifcation by the manufacturers are carefully selected and therefore far more reliable than the average of those sold without certificates Nevertheless we are compelled to reject %, 50 and even 75 per cent. of those sent us. AS a rule, these are not rejected without receiving double the care and time required by the large majority of those to which certificates are accorded.
 When there is taken into account the large percentage which the cost of certi6- ton adds to the manufacturers prices, 1t is not to be wondered at that when he has succeeded in continuously producing for 8 season, instruments with few and uniform corrections, he should point to these con- ditions as justifying his customers in &C., eepting his instruments without other certification than his own. In those cases of this sort which have come under our observation, we have noticed that appar- ently the workman when he no longer has occasion to expect his work to be traversed by disinterested authority, soon relsxes hls efforts at an accuracy which is hardly yet fully appreciated by the ultimate con sumer, and his instruments, when they come to us from his customers, are not quite up to the standard maintained when he was continuously, or at short intervals, them to such test: possibly he l