1 2 History of Astronwny for the Year 1 S03. 



graphy. He hoped he should be able to return in the spring 

 of 1804, to publish. the immense and valuable collection of 

 observations he has made in the course of five years. 



The taste for travelling into Africa, which I strongly re- 

 commended, has continued to produce curious enterprises : 

 — M. Domingo Badia, a Spaniard, sent by the Prince of 

 Peace, caused himself to be circumcised, and assumed the 

 name of Ali-Beik-Abdallah, that he might travel in greater 

 security. M. Durand, celebrated by his work on AJrica, 

 has communicated to me the observation of an eclipse at 

 Tangcr, and I have deduced from it the longitude. This 

 new Mussulman is at present in unknown deserts, where, 

 supported by his zeal, he braves want, sufferings, and dan- 

 gers. The depot of war. under the direction of general 

 Sanson, continues its labours for geography; and details 

 respecting it may be seen in the Moniteur for Novem- 

 ber 9, 1803. Five numbers of its memoir, for the instruc- 

 tion of geographical engineers, have been published. M. 

 Henry continues the map of Helvetia; Tranchot that of the 

 four departments of the left bank of the Rhine; Nouet that 

 of Savoy. Engineers are now employed on maps of Ha- 

 nover and the island of Elba. 



The maps of Bavaria and of Swabia will soon be con- 

 nected with that of France. The fifty sheets ol the map of 

 Egypt are finished, and the map of the Morea, on which 

 M. Barbier de Boccage has been employed with that know- 

 ledge of which he has given so many proofs. 



M. Lapie has pifblished a beautiful map of general Bo- 

 naparte's expedition in Italy, from the passage of the Great 

 Saint Bernard on the 14th of May 1800, to the battle of 

 ftiurengo on the 14th of June. 



On "the 25th of December 1802, the vice-president of 

 the Italian republic decreed that the three astronomers, de 

 Brera, Oriani de Caesaris, and Reggio, shall continue the 

 map of the Milanese, begun in 1788, and measure an arc 

 of the meridian. They set out in the month of May to 

 erect a portable observatory at the extremity of the base 

 measured in 1788. They observed with a repeating circle 

 which we gave them, the angles employed for the map of 

 Lombardy. They will unite their measurement to that 

 which general Von Zach, brother of our celebrated astro- 

 nomer, made in the Venetian territory; and with the tri- 

 angles of Beccaria in Piedmont, of fathers le Maire and 

 Boscovich in the states of the church, and of Tranchot in 

 Corsica. Brassier is charged with the details. 



The legislative body of the Italian republic has decreed 



the 



