OP ART3 AND SCIENCES. 39 



Dr. Henry J. Bigelow gave some account of a new process 

 of inhalation employed by Dr. Morton, of Boston, to produce 

 insensibility to pain during the performance of operations by 

 the dentist and the surgeon. 



Two hundred and eighty-eighth Meeting. 



November 12, 1846. — Q^uarterly Meeting. 



The President in the chair. 



The President announced that the new volume of the Acad-: 

 emy's Memoirs was ready for distribution to the Fellows. 



The Corresponding Secretary read a letter from M. Edouard 

 de Verneuil, of Paris, acknowledging and accepting his elec- 

 tion as a Foreign Honorary Member of the Academy. Dr. 

 George Engelmann, of St. Louis, Missouri, and Dr. Elisha 

 Bartlett, of Lowell, likewise accepted their election as Fel- 

 lows. 



Professor Peirce communicated the elements of an elliptic 

 orbit of De Yico's fourth comet, which he has computed, by 

 the method of least squares, from all the observations made by 

 Mr. Bond, combined with De Yico's observation of the 20th 

 of February, the Paris observations of the 2d, 5th, and 6th of 

 March, and the Hamburg and Altona observations of the 12th 

 and 15th of March. 



" Time of perihelion passage, March 5^-.54775, Greenwich M. S. T. 

 Longitude of perihelion, 90° 27' 18".8, Mean Equinox 1846.0. 



« ascending node, 77° 33' 26".3, 



Inclination, 85° 6' 12".3. 

 Perihelion distance, 0.663735. 

 Eccentricity, 0.9622465. 

 Semi-major axis, 17.58075. 

 Period of sidereal revolution, 73^.715. 

 Motion direct. , 



" The comparison of this orbit with observation gives the following 

 differences between the observed and computed places. 



