rate A OAN, FE. Y-B-E £E, 26r. 
in fome degree, interefling. Ifany farther apology fhould 
be thought neceflary for my troubling you, gentlemen, 
with my fentiments on this queftion, I beg leave to re- 
mind you, that in almoft every cultivated age and coun- 
try, philofophers have thought that they were not alto- 
gether ufelefsly employed in colleGting materials. for the 
natural hiftory of an animal fo interefting to mankind as 
the BEE. 
Benjamin Smith Barton. 
N°. XXXII. 
An Account of a Comet... 
DEAR SIR, ‘ 
Read Feb, N the rith of January laft, in the evening, 
’ zgth, 1793. 
| I -difcovered a comet in the Conftellation 
Cepheus. That night and the following it appeared, to 
the naked eye, fuperior in brightnefs to a fiar of the 2d. 
magnitude. On the 13th, it was evidently diminifhed, 
and it continued to: grow; more faint until about a week 
ago, when. it. difappeared.». It pafled very rapidly 
through Caffiopea, Andromeda, the Triangle and Aries. 
January the 17th, it was near. the firft ftar of Aries, and 
on the 31ft very near Flamfteed’s 84th ftar of the Whale, 
and a little further fouth I faw it, for the laft time, on 
the evening of the 8th of February. . 
Dear Sir, 
Yours, &c. | 
DAVID RITTENHOUSE. 
To Robert Patterfon, Secretary to 
the Philofophical Society, N°, XXXII. 
