Notices respecting New Books. 63 
amongst our domesticated animals, that those individuals 
longest retain their health and strength, and best bear ex- 
cessive labour and insufficient food, in which the chest is 
most deep and capacious, proportionately to the length of 
current the circulating fluid has to run; and the same re- 
mark will, 1 believe, be generally found applicable to the 
human species. I am, my dear sir, 
With great respect, sincerely yours, 
Downton, Feb, 26, 1810. THo. AND. KNIGHT. 
XI. Extract of a Letter from the Rev. Joon BRINKLEY, 
D.D. F.R.S. Andrew’s Professor of Astronomy in the 
University of Dublin, to the Rev. Nevin MAsKeEtyne, 
D.D. F.R.S. Astronomer Royal, on the annual Parallax. 
of a Lyre.* 
I HAVE now had sufficient experience of my eight-feet cir- 
cle, to be -highly satisfied with it, and have arrived at one 
conclusion, that it is of importance in astronomy. 
My observations on « Lyre for the purpose of discovering 
an annual parallax now amount to 47 in number: viz. 22 
near opposition, and 25 near conjunction, and the mean of 
these gives a result of 27,52 as the parallax of the annual 
orbit for that star, and I] have no doubt that it exceeds 2”. 
My observations of different circumpolar stars, and of 
the saine star in different states of the thermometer, seem 
to require a small alteration in the numbers of Dr. Bradley’s 
formula for refraction. 
The formula so altered is 
hei f : 
Refr, =56",9 x tang. ) Zen. dis. — 3,2 Refr. € x Beet Vara a 
29,6 = 450+ thar. 
By means of this formula, the observations of circumpolar 
stars considerably distant, give the same co-latitude to a 
great degree of exactness. 
XII. On the Alteration which Air and Water produce on 
Meat. By M. BerTuoyiet.f 
I BOILED some beef, renewing the water until the liquor 
no longer gaveany precipitation with tannin: I then sus- 
pended it in a glass cyclinder filled with atmospheric air, 
~ and which [ placed on a plate filled with water: in a few 
* From the Philosophical Transactions for 1810, Part IL 
t+ Mem. d’Arcueil, tome i. p. 333. ; 
days 
