4"8 Memoir of the late Francis Baily, Esq., F.R.S.) ^r. 



tides interesting in a great variety of ways to the practical 

 astronomer. These articles are so numerous, and so miscel- 

 laneous in their subject-matter, that it would be vain to attempt 

 any detailed account of them, within such limits as I must 

 confine myself to. Nor, indeed, is it requisite to do so ; as 

 many of them, however useful at the time, have now ceased 

 to present any especial interest apart from their general object, 

 which was that of diffusing among the British public a know- 

 ledge of the continental improvements in the art of observing, 

 and the practice of astronomical calculation, and placing in 

 the hands of our observers and computers a multitude of useful 

 tables and methods, which, though sure to work their way 

 ultimately into use, were undoubtedly accelerated in their 

 introduction into English practice by coming so recommended. 

 More special objects were those of recommending to general 

 attention and use certain eminently practical methods, such as 

 those of determining latitudes by the pole-star, longitudes by 

 moon-culminations and occultations, copious lists of which 

 were, on several occasions, either procured from abroad and 

 reprinted here, or calculated by himself for the purpose. 



The circulation of notices, also, of other remarkable expected 

 phaenomena, with a view to procuring them to be observed, — 

 the description of newly-invented foreign instruments, or of 

 such as had been long known but little used in England, — 

 the analysis of foreign astronomical publications, — everything, 

 in short, which could tend to excite curiosity, to cherish emu- 

 lation, and to render the British astronomical mind more 

 excursive and more awake than heretofore, found a place in 

 these contributions ; of which so constant and copious a fire 

 was kept up, as may well excite our surprise at the industry 

 which sustained, no less than our admiration of the zeal which 

 prompted it. 



A volume of astronomical tables and formulae, printed in 

 1827 for private distribution (as was frequently his custom), 

 and then largely circulated, but since published with correc- 

 tions, is of the utmost convenience and value, and will be 

 highly prized by every astronomer who may be fortunate 

 enough to possess a copy, as a work of ready and continual 

 reference for all the data and coefficients of our science. A 

 series of zodiacal charts was also commenced by him, but I 

 am not able to say if more than one plate was engraved. 



One of the most pfactically important and useful objects, 

 however, to which Mr. Baily's attention was about this period 

 turned, was the facilitating, by tables properly contrived for 

 the purpose, the reductions of apparent to mean places of the 

 fixed stars. It seems almost astonishing that these computa- 



