lil. 
On the Latitude of Boston. 
BY ROBERT T. PAINE, A. A. S. 
In the year 1825, a highly recommended sextant, by Ramsden, 
having been put in my possession, I was induced to determine 
with it the difference between the latitude of my residence at that 
time and of the new State House, estimated at about twenty-seven 
seconds. On the first, second, third, fourth, and sixth days of 
November of that year, | measured with it the sun’s meridian 
altitude, but was greatly surprised at the result; as although the 
observations agreed with each other exceedingly well, they made 
the position of the house only 42° 20’ 30”, or one hundred and 
eighteen seconds less than that of the State House, as laid down 
in the 297th page of the third volume of the Transactions of the 
Society. The accuracy of the position of that building not then 
being suspected, the difference was ascribed to some undiscov- 
ered error in the instrument. 
In 1827, after many and repeated examinations of the sextant, 
I measured twenty-eight meridional altitudes of the Sun, which, 
by allowing for the difference of position of the two places of 
observation, gave almost exactly the same result, and of course 
placed the State House, Harvard Hall in Cambridge, and Salem 
