Royal Astronomical Society. 57 



letters to the Astronomer Royal and Mr. Hind, dated respectively 

 December 15 and December 16. It is well known with what in- 

 terest the intimations of the discovery were received in England, and 

 the personal zeal of the Astronomer Royal in immediately circula- 

 ting the notice which he had received by every possible means, 

 needs no comment. 



Encke's elements are, — 



Epoch of mean longitude, 1846, January 0, h , Berlin mean time 



1 94° 48' 11-8" 



Mean anomaly 319 2 54*8 



Long, of the perihelion... 135 45 17*0 \ Mean equinox, 



Longitude of the node ... 14110 67 J 1846, Jan. 0. 



Inclination 5 20 7'2 



Angle of eccentricity 1116 30-4 <? = 0-195520 



Log. semi-axis major 0-413564 



Mean daily motion 850-473 



Time of revolution, 1524 days. 



Elements by Mr. Hind, deduced by Gauss's Method from the Ob- 

 servations at Berlin on December 14 ; at Altona, on December 17 ; 

 and at Mr. Bishop's Observatory, on December 24. They are 

 only a rough approximation sufficient to give a general idea of the 

 orbit. 



Epoch 1846, January 1*0, Greenwich mean time. 



Mean longitude 87 16 41 



Long, of perihelion on orbit . 142 9 50 "1 Mean equinox, 

 Long, of ascending node ... 138 41 16 J Jan. 1*0. 



Inclination 5 37 15 



Angle of eccentricity 6 9 46 



Log. semi-axis major 0-4044914 



Period, 1477 days. 



On the Periods of the Satellites of Saturn. By S. M. Drach, 

 Esq. 



The author has extracted the periods and daily motions of the 

 satellites of Saturn from Maedler's Astronomy, in confirmation of 

 the curious law announced by Sir J. Herschel. He observes that 

 perturbations of the fifth order must often occur, and, in conclu- 

 sion, proposes the following question : — " Has the action of the 

 ring caused the exact duplication of periods not to take place ? and 

 has the absence of this appendage, in the case of Jupiter, allowed 

 the absolutely rigorous formula n 1 — 3w 2 +2« 3 = to exist?" 



On the Reduction of the Sextant Observations of the Distance of 

 the Great Comet of 1843 from bright Stars. By the Rev. R. Main, 

 one of the Secretaries of the Society. 



In the introduction to this paper the author drew the attention of 

 the meeting to the remarkable zeal with which cometary observa- 

 tions and calculations had been pursued during the last few years, 

 both in this country and on the continent. In proof of this, he 

 stated that the fifth and sixth volumes of the Society's Monthly 

 Notices (commencing with the year 1840) contain announcements 



