Comet.— The Pantochronometer. 225 
raunicated a memoir on the different rights of priority in the 
discovery of lithontriptic methods.—M. Reestrentret commue - 
nicated a plan of an instrument for sounding at the greatest 
depths.—M. Magendie, in the name of Mr. Hulkens, a clock- 
maker at Philadelphia, presented an improved instrument for 
executing the same operations as those of MM. Amussat, 
Civiale, &c.—M. Girard made a report on the machine pre- 
sented to the King by M. Blanc, of Grenoble—MM. Geof- 
froy St. Hilaire, Latreille and Duméril gave a report on Me 
Serres’s work on animal monsters.—M. Duméril gave a verbal 
account of M. de Blainville’s comparative anatomy.—M. de la 
Billardiére read a report on M. Poiret’s History of the Plants 
of Europe. : 
Noy. 21.~— M. Libri communicated a memoir, in which he 
discusses various questions relative to the analytical theory of 
heat.—M. Dupuytren read the third and last part of the re- 
port of the committee on the memoirs on yellow fever, &c. 
XXXVI. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 
COMET. 
a OT RER comet has been discovered this year, by Cap- 
tain Biela, at Josephstadt. It was first seen in R 27° 38', 
and N. decl. 9° 47': but both its right ascension and declina- 
tion were diminishing. 
THE PANTOCHRONOMETER. 
In vol. lxiii. of the Philosophical Magazine we noticed Es- 
sex’s Portable Damp Detector, an useful application of hy- 
grometry to the purposes of good housewifery and the pre- 
servation of health. The same ingenious artist has pro- 
duced an instrument called the Pantochronometer, intended, 
by a neat combined application of several principles of nature 
and facts in astronomy, to instruct young persons in the va- 
riation of time according to longitude, in a very amusing 
manner. A sun-dial is supported by a magnetic needle, ad- 
justed to the variation in the different longitudes for which 
the instrument is constructed, and the divisions of the hours 
on which are made to indicate, in an outer fixed circle, the 
corresponding time at most places of consequence on the 
globe. ‘The principle and applications of the Pantochrono- 
meter are perspicuously explained in a work which is sold 
with it; and, altogether, we think the inyention a very useful 
Vol. 67. No. 385. March 1826. 2F addition 
