230 Royal Astronomical Socze/y, 



Each class is further divided into two divisions, lucida and reliquee; 

 the former containing those in which the companion is not of less 

 than the eighth magnitude. The principle of this division is. Pro- 

 fessor Struve states, that the catalogue is very nearly complete 

 with respect to the lucidce, on which, therefore, certain theoretical 

 conjectures may be formed, relative to the numbers of double stars 

 in different orders of magnitude. The introduction, besides all the 

 matters explanatory of the present and emendatory of the former, 

 catalogue, which might certainly have been looked for from Pro- 

 fessor Struve, will contain conclusions concerning the nature of 

 double stars, from their distribution among the orders of magnitude, 

 their brightness, proper and relative motions, &c. Professor Struve 

 has added a specimen of the catalogue, and several interesting con- 

 clusions, of which our limits will only enable us here to notice the 

 very rapid motion of 42 Comae Berenices (130° in six years), the re- 

 duction of the period of \ Ophiuchi to less than 40 years, and the 

 close approach to their nearest distance of y Coronse and lo Leonis. 

 The latter system, between Sir William Herschel and Professor 

 Struve, has now been watched from the greatest to the least apparent 

 distance. 



VII. Stars observed with the moon at the Royal Observatories 

 of Greenwich and Edinburgh, and the Observatory of Cambridge, 

 in the months of June— October, 1836. 



Dec. 9, 1836. — The following communications were read, viz.: — 



I. On a remarkable phaenomenon that occurs in total and an- 

 nular eclipses of the sun. By Mr. Baily, Vice-President of the 

 Society. 



The' author states, that, having read of certain singular appear- 

 ances that are recorded as having taken place in annular eclipses 

 of the sun, at the moment that the whole disc of the moon enters 

 on the disc of the sun, he w^as desirous of witnessing those phseno- 

 mena at the solar eclipse of May 15th last j and, finding that the 

 central path of the moon's shadow would pass nearly in a straight 

 line from Ayr, on the western coast of Scotland, to Alnwick on the 

 eastern coast of Northumberland, he proceeded to Scotland for 

 that express purpose. Having computed, from the elements given 

 in the Nautical Almanac, that the central line of the moon's umbra 

 would pass directly over, or very near to, Jedburgh in Roxburgh- 

 shire ; and having ascertained that this place was within eight or 

 ten miles of Makerston, the seat of Lieut. -General Sir Thomas 

 Macdougal Brisbane, Bart., who has a well-furnished observatory 

 there, and from whom he was sure of obtaining the correct time for 

 his chronometers, he resolved to make that town his head-quarters. 

 Mr. Baily took with him a 34^-feet refracting telescope by Dollond, 

 2^ inches aperture, and magnifying about 40 times; a 20-inch 

 Rochon's prismatic telescope, for measuring the distances between 

 the borders of the sun and moon ; two thermometers j a burning- 

 glass ; and four pocket chronometers. 



Mr. Baily took up his station at the house of Mr. Veitch, a very 

 ingenious gentleman, residing at Inch Bonney, about half-a-mile to 



