404 Life of the Rev. John FlamsteecL [Dec. 



her mean and true right ascension ; and consequently that 

 the equation of the earth's orbit turned into time must 

 make one of the ingredients or parts of it, and the difference 

 of her longitude and right ascension the other. Whereupon 

 I wrote a small tract about the inequalities and aquations 

 of natural days; which, having turned into Latin, I showed 

 to Mr. Halton, who approved of it : and six years afterwards 

 it was printed with Mr. Horrox's posthumous works, and 

 put an end to all that controversy. 



The following years, till 1669, 1 employed my spare hours 

 in calculating the places of the planets, observed by Heve- 

 lius, and related in his Mercurius sub sole visus, from the 

 Caroline Tables : whereby I found they agreed not so well 

 with the heavens as I presumed they had ; and that further 

 observations were requisite to correct them. 



I could not think of any more proper than those of the 

 moon's and planets' appulses to fixed stars, or transits by 

 them : considering that they required but a slender appara- 

 tus of instruments, and might be taken by a single observer 

 with ordinary assistance. I collected some remarkable 

 eclipses of fixed stars by the moon, that would happen in 

 the year 1670; calculated them from the Caroline Tables; 

 directed them to the Lord Viscount Brouncker, then Presi- 

 dent of the Royal Society, and conveyed them into his 

 [hands]. This labour was well accepted both by him and 

 them, and brought me letters of thanks both from their 

 Secretary Mr. Oldenburg, and Mr. Collins one of their 

 members, with whom I had a faithful friendship and inge- 

 nious correspondence afterwards, so long as they lived. My 

 letter was dated November 4th, 1669 : Mr. Collins and Mr. 

 Oldenburg, in January following. 



From this time I began to have accounts sent me of all 

 the mathematical books that were published either at home 

 or abroad. In June 1670, my father, taking notice of my 

 correspondence with them and some other ingenious men 

 whom I had never seen, would needs have me take a journey 

 up to London, that I might be personally acquainted with 

 them : that being the time of the year when his affairs would 

 allow me liberty. I embraced the offer gladly, and there 

 became first acquainted with Sir Jonas Moore [His Majesty's 

 Surveyor of the Ordnance], who presented me with Mr. 



