1826.] Memoirs, S^c, of the Astronomical Society/. 455 



mination of the Latitude of the Observatory of Wilna, By 

 J. Slawinsky, Associate of the Astronomical Society of London. 



XXXV. Supplement to a former Paper " On the Latitude of 

 the Royal Observatory of Greenwich.'^ By John Pond, Esq. 

 Astronomer Royal. 



Report of the Council of the Society to the Sixth Annual Gene' 

 ral Meeting,^ 



Addresses of Francis Baily, Esq, FRS. President of the Astro* 

 nomical Society of London, on presenting the Honorary Medals of 

 the Society to the several Persons to whom they had been awarded. ^ 



The remainder of the General Catalogue of the principal Stars 



New Tables for facilitating the computation of Precession, 

 Aberration, and Nutation of 2881 principal fixed Stars, together 

 with a Catalogue of the same reduced to January I, 1830 ; com- 

 puted at the expence and under the direction oj the Astronomical 

 Society of London ; to which is prefixed an Introduction expla- 

 natory of their Construction and Application. By Francis Baily, 

 Esq. President of the Society. 



From this work we extract the following, as the severest test 

 of its merit. 



" The preceding Catalogue having been finished, it became 

 desirable to ascertain how far the mean places of the stars, 

 (which had been brought up from the observations of Bradley 

 and Piazzi by means of the proposed formula) could be de- 

 pended upon. With this view a comparison was made with the 

 places of the 36 Greenwich stars that have been observed and 

 reduced at different times by Messrs. Bessel, Brinkley, and 

 Pond : and which is inserted at the end of the work. 



" There are two Catalogues of the Right Ascension of the 

 36 Greenwich stars published by M. Bessel in the Konigsberg 

 Observations : one (which may be considered as Dr. Maske- 

 lyne^s catalogue of 1805) reduced to 1815, and the other (de- 

 pending on M. Bessel's own observations) reduced to 1825. 

 Both these catalogues were brought up to 1830 by means of 

 the annual variations attached to the catalogue of 1825. The 

 catalogue of the same stars by Dr. Brinkley was taken from 

 M. Schumacher's Astronomische Nachrichten, 'No. 78: it is 

 there reduced to 1824, but was brought up to 1830 by means of 

 the annual variations annexed thereto. The first catalogue, in 

 AR, of Mr. Pond, was taken from that (reduced to 1819) which 

 is inserted in the Nautical Almanac for 1822 ; and was the last 

 that was published prior to his important alteration of the posi- 

 tion of the equinoctial points by the addition of 0^*31 to all the 

 stars. The second catalogue of Mr. Pond was that (reduced to 

 1825) which is pubhshed in the Nautical Almanac for 1829, 

 and contains the latest corrections, to August 1826. Both 

 * See dnnals, N, S. vol. xi. p. 295. t See Ibid, p. 454, 



