John Russell Hind, an English astronomer, born in Nottingham, May 12, 1823. He was educated for a tradesman, but in 1840 entered the office of a civil engineer in London. Through the influence of Prof. Wheatstone he obtained a situation the same year in the royal observatory at Greenwich, where he remained about four years. After a short stay in Ireland, where he was sent on the commission to determine the exact longitude of Valentia, he was appointed, at the recommendation of Prof. Airy, astronomer royal, to a post in the observatory of Mr. Bishop, in Regent's park, London. He began here in 1845 a series of observations, during the course of which he calculated the orbits and declinations of more than 70 planets and comets, noted 16 new movable stars and 3 nebula?, and discovered 10 new asteroids. In July, 1846, he discovered a comet, which had been observed by De Vico two hours before at Rome; and early in 1847 another comet, which at its perihelion passage, March 24, was bright enough to be seen in the strong morning twilight. In April, 1848, he made a very remarkable discovery of a new reddish yellow variable star of the 5th magnitude in Ophiuchus. In 1850 this star was only of the 11th magnitude, and it was calculated that it would soon disappear altogether.

The asteroids discovered by Mr. Hind are as follows: Iris, Aug. 13, 1847; Flora, Oct. 18, 1847; Victoria, Sept. 13, 1850; Irene, May 19, 1851; Melpomene, June 24, 1852; For-tuna, Aug. 22, 1852; Calliope, Nov. 16, 1852; Thalia, Dec. 15, 1852; Euterpe, Nov. 8, 1853; Urania, July 22, 1854. In December, 1844, he was elected a member of the astronomical society of London, and was afterward appointed its foreign secretary. He has received many other honors at home and abroad, and since 1852 has had a pension of £200 from the government. He is the director of the "Nautical Almanac" of England. His writings have generally been published in the "Transactions" of the royal astronomical society of London, in the Astronomische Nach-richten of Altona, and in the Comtes Rendus of the academy of sciences of Paris. He is also the author of "An Astronomical Vocabulary " (1852); "The Comets" (1852); "The Solar System, a Descriptive Treatise upon the Sun, Moon, and Planets, including an Account of all the Recent Discoveries" (1852); "Illustrated London Astronomy, for the Use of Schools and Students " (1853); " Elements of Algebra" (1855);, and "Descriptive Treatise on Comets" (1859).