Excerpt from The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge, for the Year 1850 Tal: twenty-first volume of the American Almanac, being the first vol ume of the third series, is now ofi'ered to the public. Unwearied pains have been taken to collect full, authentic, and varied information concern ing the complex affairs of the general and State governments; and a mass of official documents and private correspondence has been digested relating to the government, finances, legislation, public institutions, internal im provements, and resources of the United States. It is believed that the present volume is equal to its predecessors in fulness and accuracy, and that it will sustain the high character of the American Almanac as a trustworthy manual for reference, and a full repository of useful knowledge. The Astronomical Department has been, as usual, under the direction of Professor Peirce, whose high reputation is a sufficient guaranty of the com pleteness and accuracy of the computations. The article upon Melloni's Researches in Radiant Heat is a treatise in itself, and will be useful and instructive to all classes of readers. The earlier volumes of the Almanac contained articles upon various scientific matters. Since that time, the achievements of science have been so numerous, as to require a new series of articles upon subjects of the same class. The series is com menced this year, and will be continued in future volumes. The M eteoro logical Information is full and general new and carefully prepared tables are given. Some favors were received too late for publication. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.