Royal Astronomical Society, 221 



February 3. — Read ^' Observations on the Genus Ho.«ac/cia and the 

 American Lot'i" By George Bentham, Esq., F.L.S. 



The author enumerates eleven species of this genus, the whole of 

 which, except one from Mexico, are from California and the regions 

 bordering on Columbia River, where they were discovered by Mr. 

 Douglas. The Lotus sericeus of Pursh and several other species with 

 solitary flowers, formerly referred by the author to Hosackia, he now 

 considers as more naturally associating with Lotus than with that 

 genus. His amended character of Hosackia is as follows: Calyx tu- 

 bulosus vel subcampanulatus, 5-dentatus. Vexilli unguis a caeteris 

 distans. AI(B vexillum subaequuntes, patenles. Carina submutica. 

 Stylus subrectus. iS^igma capitatum. Legw^ncw cylindraceum,apterum. 



Herbae (boreali-americanae) perewwes? FoVm impari-pi?inata, Sti- 

 pulae scariosce minutissimee, vel folioli diffortnes, Pedunculi axillares, 

 umbellaiim pluriflori, folio Jlorali, seepius stipati. 



ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY. 



November 14, 1834". — The Society met this evening, for the first 

 time, in its new apartments in Somerset House, which have recently 

 been appropriated to it by His Majesty's Government, through the 

 interference and at the request of His Royal Highness the Duke of 

 Sussex. 



A vote of thanks was unanimously passed by the meeting, expres- 

 sive of their sense of His Royal Highness's kind attention to the in- 

 terests and welfare of the Society. 



The following communications were then read : — Some account 

 of the Astronomical Observations made by Dr. Edmund Halley, at 

 the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. By F. Baily, Esq., President 

 of the Society. 



The author remarks, that although Dr. Halley was the Astrono- 

 mer Royal for upwards of twenty years, yet that there are no ac-- 

 counts published of any of his observations, except the relation of 

 the three following phaenomena inserted in the Philosophical 

 Transactions: viz. the solar eclipse on November 27, 1722; the 

 transit of Mercury over the sun's disc on October 29, 1723 ; and 

 the lunar eclipse on March 15, 1736. The rest exist in manuscript 

 only, and have never yet been made public. They are contained in 

 four small quarto volumes, deposited in the library of the Royal 

 Observatory ; and it has been a frequent subject of inquiry, both at 

 home and abroad, as to the contents of these volumes, and the value 

 of the observations. 



These manuscripts are very badly, and sometimes rather con- 

 fusedly written ; especially in the early part of the series : there 

 being numerous computations and much extraneous matter written 

 on the same page with the observations, intermixed with and occa- 

 sionally obliterating the more important figures ; so that they can- 

 not be so readily consulted with that ease and convenience, nor with 

 that clearness and distinctness, which are desirable in works of this 

 kind. Added to which, there is a constant risk of loss or damage 

 by fire, or other accident, which ought not to exist in a document 



