Scientific Intelligence. 75 



that he puhlished his Astronomiae Cometicae Synopsis in the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions for 1705. In this he gives the parabolic 

 elements of 24 comets observed between 1337 and 1698, with the 

 table which he formed for calculating their motions. This he re- 

 printed separately at Oxford in the following summer ; and an Eng- 

 lish translation was published the same year, which probably was his 

 own, as he adopted it in the second volume of the Miscellanea Cu- 

 riosa. The Synopsis was intended for the introduction to a larger 

 work, and he printed it to secure his calculations from being lost, in 

 case of any accident befalling him. The first edition contains a 

 notice of some similarity (on which however he did not much de- 

 pend) between the comets of 1GG1 and 1532, whose possible return 

 in 129 years has not been verified. In 1715 the work was re-printed 

 at the end of an English translation of Gregory's Astronomy. In 

 this he first speaks of calculating the elliptical orbits, and brings for- 

 ward the possible identity of the comets of 1105 and 1680. In 1719, 

 with his volume of Astronomical Tables, he printed a new edition of 

 the Synopsis, in which he entirely omits the mention of the comets 

 of 1661, but gives elliptical elements for those of 1680 and 1682, and 

 a comparison of the places calculated from them, with the observations 

 which he could find on record. He had likewise discovered some 

 earlier observations of the last, which agreed well with its revolving 

 in an orbit of about 75g years ; and having pointed out the circum- 

 stances which retarded its return, he confidently concluded that it 

 might be expected again in the latter end of 1758 or 1759. 



Mr. Kynston exhibited, and presented to the Society, a preserved 

 specimen of a grasshopper, to which were attached a number of spe- 

 cies of worm, very long, slender, and convoluted, which had fixed 

 themselves upon it, and destroyed it. It was found in Switzerland. 



The President shewed a portion of wasp's nest made in a hollow 

 in a sugar-loaf, into which the wasps had eaten, and composed of 

 the blue and white paper in which the loaf was wrapped. The 

 nest was discovered in the month of August, and appeared to have 

 been begun not long before. No instance being as yet known of 

 wasps going out from a nest already formed to construct another in 

 the same year, it is most probable that the present nest was begun by 

 a female wasp, which had survived the last winter, and not by any 

 of the other wasps which were engaged in eating the sugar. 



Dr. Daubeny stated, that during the last autumn he had made the 

 discovery of fresh springs which evolve nitrogen gas. 



The first of these was the tepid spring of Mallow in the county of 

 Cork, a water which contains but very little solid matter. The gas 

 evolved consisted of 



Nitrogen 93*5. Oxygen 6*5. 

 It appears to issue from carboniferous limestone, the beds of which 

 in its immediate neighbourhood are vertically disposed, intimating 

 that they have been affected by some violent action since they were 

 originally deposited. 



The other spring, disengaging nitrogen, which he observed, was 

 near Clonmell. It was a very clear but perfectly cold water, called 

 St. Patrick's well, held in much veneration in the neighbourhood, 



