94 View of the Progress of 



his life are recorded in the Monthly Correspondence for 1810, 

 Among the later occurrences, the first that is here mentioned is 

 his being appointed to examine the state of the weights and mea- 

 sures of Sicily, and his giving the preference to a system of 

 binary subdivision, founded on the measures already employed 

 at Palermo, in preference to the decimal system of the French. 

 His various astronomical discoveries and publications are as 

 universally esteemed as they are elaborate and important ; and 

 he has still the happiness of enjoying his faculties wholly unim- 

 paired, at the advanced age which he has attained. 



VI. BesseVs Formulas for the computation of Nutation and 

 Aberration. 



The subject of this essay is of great importance to the culti- 

 vation of the more refined departments of astronomy, and the 

 ingenious author has bestowed on it no common share of industry 

 and accuracy : but his investigations appear to be somewhat 

 unnecessarily complicated, and it will be practicable to introduce 

 the only material parts of them into a demonstration conducted 

 in a more geometrical and more intelligible form. [See Art. II. 

 page 21.] 



VII, Littrow on the Eclipse of the 1th September, 1820. 



Tables showing the path of the shadow in this remarkable 

 eclipse, and the times of its begirming and end for all the prin- 

 cipal parts of Germany. The author has also given a very con- 

 venient formula for finding the apparent time of the beginning 

 and end at any other place, of which the longitude E. from Paris 

 in hours is h, and the latitude in degrees d; the beginning, in the 

 time of the place in question, being 2'',412 + 1 ,304 d — ,03504 d; 

 and the end 5'',550 + 1,102 /« — ,03999 b ; and the angle made, 

 at the beginning of the eclipse, by the line joining the centres 

 with the vertical line, being 52°,359 + 28,463 h. Thus, for 

 Greenwich we have k zz — ,1555, d = 51,478, and the begin- 

 ning 24'^, the end 3''. 19'^ ; the Nautical Almanac giving 24'J-, 

 and 3M6'|, respectively. For Paris, h=:0,d = 48,837, and 

 the beginning is at 42', the end 3''.35'^^ ; while the Connaissance 



