452 Mr. Lee on some Extraordinary Inconsistencies 



one night to another, frequently in direct opposition to what 

 might have been expected from refraction, aberration, or nu- 

 tation, and so capricious as to defy even a southern motion to 

 explain — ought to have attracted the attention of the observer, 

 and instantly led to a suspicion of something wrong : but full 

 eight months were suffered to elapse before any notice was 

 taken of them. Such a lamentable ignorance of the state of 

 ,the instrument could never have existed for a single day, had 

 the Circle been provided with a plumb-line or a level, or had 

 the zenith sector been employed in conjunction with it, for 

 ascertaining its line of collimation. 



The sixth class consists of observations of the passage of 

 certain remarkable fixed stars, by the wires of the justly cele- 

 brated ten-feet transit instrument, and are intended to show 

 the degree of confidence due to an observation by any single 

 wire. A comparison of the observations of the same star on 

 different nights, plainly shows that the Greenwich transits are 

 liable to errors which one would hardly expect to find in obser- 

 vations with an instrument of only as many inches focal length. 



The observations of transits with the mural circle appear 

 to be noted down with a very culpable degree of negligence : 

 as a proof of which, it is only necessary to cite a few exam- 

 ples from the Observations of 1822 just published. — On ([ 3d 

 of June, Castor passed the meridian instead otProcyon. On ^ 

 20th of July, Arcturus is made to pass the meridian twice in 

 the space of little more than two hours. On O 28th of July, 

 a. Ophiuchi passed the meridian of the Circle -room about l h l m 

 before it passed the meridian of the Transit-room ; and <? 

 30th of July, in the Transit-room « Coronce passed the me- 

 ridian 8 m 21 s before a. Serpentis, but in the Circle-room not 

 till l m 38 s after that star. 



The Intervals between the transits of a Lyra; and u' 2 Ca- 

 pricorni in the Circle observations for the same year, fre- 

 quently differ more than 2" from the true interval ; which (if 

 these observations are to be relied on) show that in 1822 that 

 instrument was still more out of the meridian than in 1821. 



During the whole of the year 18'21, only sixteen eclipses of 

 Jupiter's satellites were observed at Greenwich; though no 

 less than eighteen were observed in the last five months alone 

 by Mr. Beaufoy at Bushy. No occultations of the stars by 

 the moon are to be found. The occultation of the Pleiades 

 by the moon on the 13th of October is not noticed, though 

 observed at Bushy; and the weather seems to have been fa- 

 vourable, for the transit of a Pegasi, which took place on that 

 night about a quarter of an hour before the occultation, was 

 observed at Greenwich. 



The 



