tiijlory of Ajlronomy for 179?!. 385 



kriow a competitor who has made immenfe calculations on 

 that fubjeft. Our prize will ferve to terminate and render 

 public that important labour which, united to Laplace's 

 theory, will bring the moon's tables, and the calculation of 

 the longitude, to a new degree of precifion. If errors of 

 three myrametres (feven leagues) were formerly committed 

 at fea through the fault of the tables, they will foon be re- 

 duced to two or three. 



C. Meffier, who continues to fearch for comets, difcovered 

 one on the 12th of April 1798, towards the Pleiades ; it was 

 feiall, and without any tail, but of cotifiderable brilliancy: it 

 could not be diftinguifhed by the naked eye. It forms the 

 twenty-firft which C. Meflier has difcovered fince 1758, 

 and the forty-firft he has obferved. The number of the 

 comets now known is 88, according to the catalogue in my 

 aftronomy; Dr. Burckhardt, an able aftronomer of Gotha> 

 who had been fome months at Paris, loft no time to calcu- 

 late the orbit of this comet, which he did in two days, a 

 circumftance very extraordinary^ I have published C. 

 Meflier's obfervations, which Dr. Burckhardt reduced and 

 calculated by employing feveral positions of the new ftaT3 

 furnifhed by C. Lefrangais, my nephew. This comet was 

 almoft as remote from us as the fun, and its diftance varied 

 little for a month. It ceafed to be vifible after the 24th of 

 May. I had traced out its courfe on pafteboard for my au- 

 ditors, as I generally do, and any one could there fee its 

 diftance and fituation for each day. C. Bouvard, at the ob- 

 fervatory, made alfo various obfervations, which we fhall 

 publim with thofe of C. Meflier, until they appear more at 

 large in the Memoirs of the National Inftitute, with a chart 

 of its courfe, as C. Meflier always gave in the Memoirs of 

 the ci-devant Academy. Dr. Olbers at Bremen obferved 

 it alfo as foon as he was informed of it by the Journal 

 de Paris. 



But before this real comet, Paris refounded with the report 



of a pretended comet. On the 16th of January a new 



Vol. Ill, C comet 



