SEYFFARTH ON THE THEORY OF THE MOON'S MOTIONS. 427 



belongs to the most reliably ascertained eclipses of the ancients, 

 because it is corroborated by the Annales Maximi, Ennius, and 

 Cicero (R. P. i. 16). Pingre (Art de ver. les dates) refers the 

 conjunction to July ist, 1711.45m. mean Paris time, and this result 

 agrees, with trifling exceptions, with the following computation, 

 the work of Prof. D Airest, who applied Damoiseau's Tables and 

 Airy's corrections of the latter. The letter t signifies time. 



According to this computation the southern obscuration of the 

 sun amounted to 2 f 34" 2, i.e. nearly to 1 inch only. This result 

 clearly demonstrates that the secular acceleration of the moon's 

 Nodes, adopted in our Tables, is incorrect, and that the computed 

 longitude of the ft must be diminished. Supposing the ft was 7 

 west of the point to which Damoiseau refers it, then the follow- 

 ing figures result, as the computation of Mr. Heym, then Adjunct 

 of the Leipzig Observatory, shows. The applied Tables were 

 those of Carlini and Damoiseau. 



Accoiding to these statements the obscuration of the sun com- 

 menced at 15I1. 43m., and ended at 17I-1. 29m.; its middle was 

 i6h. 36m. ; whilst 10 inches of the sun's northern limb were cov- 

 ered in Rome. Hence it is evident that the western distance of 



