the % 



l&mW*. EDINBURGH and 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



DECEMBER 1846. 



LXI. Remarks on some Points of the Reasoning in the recent 

 Discussions on the Theory of the Aberration of Light. By 

 the Rev. Baden Powell, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., F.R.A.S., 

 Savilian Professor of Geometry in the University of Oxford*. 



THE explanation of the phenomenon of the aberration of 

 light, as given in most of the established treatises on astro- 

 nomy, seems for at least a long time past, to have been generally 

 acquiesced in ; until at the meeting of the British Association, 

 1845fj the subject was stirred anew by the announcement of 

 the investigations of Prof. Challis and Mr. Stokes, the discus- 

 sion of which has been continued in so many numbers of the 

 Philosophical Magazine (vols, xxvii. xxviii.),and which seemed 

 to open a new epoch in the history of the question. 



The first impressions taken, and the reports which obtain 

 currency in such a case, are not always to be trusted. But 

 we were given to understand that we had hitherto been all 

 along under an entire mistake with regard to aberration ; that 

 all the existing interpretations of it were unsatisfactory ; that 

 it in fact remained to this day wholly unexplained ; that all 

 previous writers had failed in showing the modus operandi', 

 and that (in the nomenclature of Dr. Whewell) " the appro- 

 priate idea" was wholly wanting, until now for the first time 

 supplied. Some again understood it to have been asserted, 

 that we were now to believe no object really to lie in the di- 

 rection which the ray coming from it seemed to indicate; 

 that all objects, terrestrial as well as celestial, are subject to 

 aberration ; and that the astronomer, referring the star to the 

 cros3 wire of his telescope, sees the wire out of its true place 

 and not the star. 



* Communicated by the Author, 

 t See Report, Sectional Proceedings, p. 9. 

 Phil. Mag. S. 3. Vol. 29. No. 196. Dec. 1816. 2 G 



