370 Some Account of the principal modern Catalogues 



India Company have perhaps half and half, or rather more Baltic 

 than half; they will not admit it except for copper cases; for 

 their stationery, and other things they are very anxious to pre- 

 serve, where the splitting of wood would be of consequence, they 

 will not admit the American. 



" Do thev use the Baltic timber now for manv of those pur- 

 poses? — The Baltic deals are used for packing-cases to a very 

 great extent ; the price is not very different." 



LXV, Some Account of the principal modern Catalogues of fixed 

 Stars; ivitli Remarks connected luitk iheSuhject. By A Cor- 

 respondent. 



" Celui qui cherclioit a se procurer des Ta'iles Astronouiiques, pouvoit 

 d'abord etre, avecraison, embarrass($ a choisir les meilleures et le&plus 

 exactes ,• ensuite il ne pouvoit acqu^rir celles qui lui etoient necessairos, 

 sans beaucoup de peine, de temps, ct de depense." " Un Astronoms 

 est done oblige d'acheter une bibliothfeque, tandis qu'il ne demandoit 

 qu'un recueil choisi de Tables. C'est pourqnoi Ton souhaite depuis 

 longtems que les Astronomes publient les lesultats de leur travaux d'une 

 fa?on plus commode et plus aisee." — Prij'ace aiix Tables de Berlin, yar 

 Bode, Lambert, et Schulze, 17/6. 



At has long been a matter of regret with many persons, who, 

 though not professed astronomers, are in the habit of devoting 

 their leisure moments to the cultivation of celestial science; that 

 there exists not any catalogue of stars, the production of a British 

 press, upon which any reliance can be placed at the present day, 

 either for magnitudes or positions; whilst the foreign publica- 

 tions of the kind are in general expensive and of difficult access, 

 and some of tliem are so to a very great degree. 



The above quoted remarks are therefore equally applicable 

 now, as at the period when they were originally made, at least 

 with regard to the Tables of the fixed Stars ; since the lapse of 

 45 years has rendered entirely obsolete the Collection of Tables, 

 in three volumes, octavo, already referred to, which had been 

 assembled together by the laudable industry of the three distin- 

 guished editors, under the patronage of the Royal Prussian Aca- 

 demy. 



Wollaston's " Specimen " (as the author modestly termed it) 

 published 32 years since, was received by astronomers with con- 

 siderable eagerness ; not because the materials employed in its 

 compilation possessed the wished-for accuracy, but because it 

 presented those materials in a connected and systematic form. 

 The author in his preface insisted strongly on the necessity of 

 astronomers acting in concert, in order to remove those defects 

 which his own labours had exhibited in the most prominent man- . 



ner. 



