The year 1878 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below.
Astronomy
English astronomer Richard A. Proctor describes the Zone of Avoidance, the area of the night sky that is obscured by our own galaxy, for the first time.
Charles Lapworth publishes his analysis of the change in graptolite fossils through sequences of exposed shales in southern Scotland, establishing the importance of using graptolites to understand stratigraphic sequences.[6]
The sauropod genus Diplodocus is first named by Othniel Charles Marsh as well as the Theropod genus Allosaurus. These are both from the Jurassic aged Morrison formation.
Remington, in the United States, introduce their No. 2 typewriter, the first with a shift key enabling production of lower as well as upper case characters.