

14 History of Astronomy for the Year 1803. 



Cassel, Brunswick, Wolfcnbuttel, Hclmstadt, Wernigordey 

 Ilsemburg, Naumburg, Leipsig, the mountains of Peters- 

 berg near Halle, Weissenstein, the Meisncr in Hesse, the 

 Gleichen near Gottingen, and the Possen near Sonder- 

 hausen. Each place will be determined by at least thirty or 

 forty observations. Thus the celestial arc of the parallel 

 will be perfectly determined. He will repeat the same 

 thing in another manner the next year. Baron Von Zach. 

 expects that he shall be able to proceed gradually to Nime- 

 guen, which is six degrees towards the west in the fifty- 

 second parallel. No arc of longitude will have ever been 

 measured with so much precision. The case will be the 

 same with the meridian of the Brocken. There are already 

 three hundred observations of latitude with a multiplying 

 circle of nineteen inches made by Lenoir, to whom we 

 are indebted for the largest and best instruments of this 

 kind. He has just constructed one for Palermo, in Sicily, 

 where M. Piazzi proposes to measure a degree; but artists 

 of this kind are still too few at Paris. M. Jecker has made 

 several reflecting circles and sextants for the navy. Baron 

 Von Zach employed the sun and the eagle, and he found a 

 singular agreement: the results will appear in his journal. 

 Thirty observations, made indiscriminately, gave him the 

 same second as three hundred : he measured a base of a 

 thousand toises to within an inch. Such extensive opera- 

 tions have never been conducted with so much exactness. 



Messrs. Goldbach and SeyfTert have determined six places 

 of the electorate of Saxony during an astronomical tour, 

 undertaken for the purpose of observing the signals by fire 

 which baron Von Zach made on the Brocken. I shall men- 

 tion only the two principal towns: Eisleben 51° 32' 30" 

 and 8' 45" in time to the west of the meridian of Dresden; 

 Merseburg 51° 21' 33" and l' 29" to the west of the meri- 

 dian of Leipzic. The last determination is exceedingly 

 exact, having been verified by the result of a trigonome- 

 trical measurement begun by M. Goldbach, and for which 

 he had been collecting for several years the best instruments 3 

 namely, a toise made by Lenoir ; a repeating circle by the 

 same artist ; a sextant by Ramsden ; a circle by Baumann 5 

 a steel chain of fifty feet, constructed like that made by 

 Ramsden for general Roy's measurement ; a clock by Syf* 

 fert, and a travelling time-piece that beats half seconds* 

 It is much to be regretted that so zealous and able' an ama- 

 teur a> \1. Goldbach, can devote only a small part of his 

 time to astronomy. The chronometer he employed in this 

 journey Jfcas made by M. Syffert. g 



The 



