  The purpose of this note is to announce the results of our investigation into
the role played by the continuous spectrum in the development of the Selberg
trace formula vis-\`a-vis a pair $(G,\Gamma)$. For the sake of simplicity, we
shall restrict ourselves to a "rank-2" situation, a case in point being when $G
= \textbf{SL}(3,\mathbb{R}), \ \Gamma = \textbf{SL}(3,\mathbb{Z})$. Full
details (in all generality) will appear elsewhere.
