ASTRONOMICAL PHENOMENA FOR 1861.

The American Almanac for 1861, contains a variety of astronomical and meteorological intelligence. The eclipses there recorded have already been noticed in our columns, and we find nothing especially new or original in an astronomical point of view in this issue of the Almanac except the tide table, tables of the passage by the planets of meridian (mean-time) and their declination at transit; also an article on meteorology. The other portions of this article are derived from other

sources.

In reference to the tides, it is computed in this Almanac by the formula of La Place that the highest tides of 1861, according to the Washington mean-time of new or full Moon, will be those of February 23, March 26, April 24, Oct. 4 and Nov. 2. The actual rise, however, depends upon the strength and direction of the wind; so that the above estimates are very uncertain approximation for the coast of the United States.

It may be useful to sum up from other sources, intelligence in reference to this period of the astronomical year. On the 20th March the Sun enters the constellation Aries; the planes of the equator and the ecliptic become coincident; the centre of the Sun is directly opposite the centre of the Earth, and astronomical spring commences, the day and the night being equal. As the Earth advances to the East, the great stars which have adorned the North and the East during the bril liancy of winter evenings, seem advancing further to

the West; Altaire, Vega and Denib appear no longer in the evening horizon, but will come again in the East; Orion with his belt, and the Pleiades with their sweet influences, seek earlier repose behind the Western horizon. There are, therefore, now portions of starless space in the celestial vault towards the East at certain periods of the night, and the glories of the firmament seem to concentrate near where the Sun sets, and in the frequent company of the Moon descending to the horizon. The great circumpolar constellations do not go below the horizon; Perseus, Andromeda, and the great Regulus, have all passed the meridian; Cassiopeia nestles close to the Little Bear, and the North Star stands on a line horizontal with the pointers of the Dipper, at midnight. It is one of the proofs of the translation of the solar system through space, that four thousand years ago, a star in Draco was the polestar, while it is ascertained that in some thirteen thousand years Vega will be the point at which the magnetic needle will be directed.

As to the planets visible, Jupiter and Saturn at about 5 P. M., rise near each other. The earth moves in a narrower orbit and with a swifter motion, which causes them to appear earlier night by night, both having passed the meridian on the 19th of February, within about an hour of each other. Venus will be the evening star after May 11th, for the rest of the year; from August 27th, Mars will be a morning star. It is said. that Mercury may be seen soon after sunset about February 24, June 22, October 17, and just before sunrise about April 15, August 13, and December 2. We place little reliance on this promise; for the near

ness of this interior planet to the Sun, and the obscurity of the horizon at the periods mentioned, render it almost impossible to detect him. Half a dozen sharp eyes last November strained their vision through a clear atmosphere on the horizon to see the promised stranger, and saw him not. Copernicus himself died mourning that he had never seen this swift messenger of the heavens. There will be a transit of Mercury over the Sun's disc, November 12, invisible in America, and an occultation of Mars, beginning on May 12th, at 7.30, and ending at 8.42, in the evening.

The two most recent astronomical discoveries announced are Lescarbault's (a poor French physician) planet called Vulcan, and which he saw and calculated as it passed the Sun's disc; also the fifty-seventh Asteroid between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was discovered by Biek, and christened Mnemosyne. Last summer there was a little comet in the west, soon after sunset; but he carried his tail off, and left an incomplete record. Five great comets, Biela's which sweeps around the Sun in 6 years, D'Arrest's in 64, Borsen's in 54, Winnecke's in 5, and Encke's in 34, will reappear within the next five years.

Much might be said of meteorology and its development, through the articles of friend Meriam, and the weather reports sent to the Smithsonian Institution by the telegraph. Storms can be discovered before they come, and their path quite correctly ascertained in advance. The American Almanac has an excellent paper on meteorology, in which the various theories of the earth's temperature are discussed; it is written by Pro

fessor Lovering of Harvard University. If Humboldt still lived, under recent discoveries and investigation, he might solve the infinite problem of the weather.

THE SUSPENSION BRIDGE.

Passing a few days at this delightful resort for tourists from all parts of the world [August, 1859], I feel called upon to perform a duty incumbent on all conscientious travelers; namely, to correct misstatements calculated to mislead the public. A letter from this place, published a few days since in that intelligent and judicious sheet, the New York Herald, stated, at least, three palpable and transparent untruths.

Under

One statement of the correspondent of the Herald was to the effect that many of the locomotive-drivers were so fearful of the security of the Suspension bridge that they refused to drive their engines across. my own eyes, some forty trains pass daily in perfect safety; and on the authority of the managers and engineers of the bridge, I state that their only difficulty with the locomotive-drivers is to keep them down to the slow time allowed by the regulations. So far from showing any anxiety, the drivers move across the bridge with the utmost nonchalance, knowing thoroughly, as they do, the perfect safety of the structure.

This well instructed correspondent of the Herald states, in the second place, that a large portion of the travelers alight at the bridge and pay 25 cents extra, rather than run the risk of crossing on the cars. On the authority of my own observation and that of the

managers of the railways and of the bridge, I assert that not one out of one hundred passengers cross the bridge on foot; and that the pedestrian is usually a feeble-minded old woman, or a traveler who prefers to view the falls and the rapids at leisure and on foot.

This profound and industrious letter-writer for the Herald, and who, I am informed reliably, was not allowed to pass the Suspension bridge gratis, because he was a Bohemian, or a wandering newsmonger who could not authenticate himself properly-states, in the third place, that the bridge has sagged lately about twenty inches. I have stood upon the railway-track of the bridge when an engine (the most trying test) passed, and with my eye on the track, have discovered nothing that could be called a sag; the utmost was a slight vibration of the cable, which might be caused by a small pack of dogs, trotting across in step. The cable is elastic and has a natural, honest and intended spring, or elastic movement, well known to, and prophesied by the architect, so long ago as 1855. There is no movement from side to side; if the anchors, foundations and piers which pierce the earth to an immense distance had been disturbed of an inch, the whole structure would have fallen instantaneously. The elasticity, vibration or deflection of the cable, have always been admitted; so far back, at least, as 1855, when the whole railway track was piled up so full as it could hold, with heavy masses of stone. The elasticity now is as great as then; and it is admitted that with a load of 326 tons, the cable might deflect so much as ten inches. But when the bridge is loaded with eight cattle cars and an engine,