BINARY STAR a CENTAURI. 



451 



aphaster on the west, moves again with proportionate slowness, and so is seen there 

 for a long period with hardly any sensible alteration of place. The time of revo- 

 lution seems to be as short as 77 years; and LaCaille and Maskelyne's) obser- 

 vations, which had before appeared somewhat anomalous, are fully reconciled, as 

 belonging to a former revolution ; indeed the small star seems to have been al- 

 most in precisely the same situation with respect to the large one when observed 

 by Maskelyne in 1761, as it appeared to Sir J. Herschel in 1838 ; and had ob- 

 servations been continued for twelve years after Maskelyne's time, our know- 

 ledge of sidereal astronomy might have been almost a century in advance of its 

 present position. 



Captain W. S. Jacob's Observations of a * and ^ Centauri {A.R. 14" 29-5'°, N.P.D. 

 150° 12'), made at Poonah, Lat. 18° 31' N., Long. 4" 55'°' 42= E., with a Five 

 Feet Achromatic Telescope. 



