Mr. Squire on the Solar Eclipse of May 15th. 293 
have we here to do with calculation or hypothesis? We see 
the thing before our eyes; the rail does deflect 0717; and why 
are we told that it only deflects 055?” Now, I say, the rail 
does not deflect 0717: if Mr. Lecount will turn again to page 
103, he will find that what he takes for “ deflections by com- 
putations, &c. from ‘051 to ‘055,” are the experimental de- 
flections ; and that ‘0717, the number “before our eyes”, is only 
the index reading. 
Mr. L. thus passes through all my pages from 36, First 
Report, to 103, Second Report, with a total misapprehension 
of my tables. I am sure, therefore, his readers will readily 
excuse his having occasionally misunderstood my deductions 
from them. 
I might, if I had leisure, amuse myself and perhaps the 
reader with many other specimens of the author’s ingenuity ; 
indeed, I really think he has subjected himself to prosecution 
for the torture which he has inflicted on my differential equa- 
tions; but I have, perhaps, said enough to show that my rules 
are not quite so ill-founded as Mr. Lecount would lead his 
readers to believe ; at the same time I will readily admit that 
with all the varieties of iron only mean results can be ex- 
pected, and “that two bars of the same weight and form will 
have different degrees of strength,” &c.; but if I have fitted 
them to what iron of a good quality (not the best) ought to 
bear, it is all that I profess; and from many experiments made 
since my Report was published, I have reason to believe I 
have succeeded. 
Mr. Lecount concludes his preface by saying: “ It requires 
a man of some nerve to face such a leviathan as Professor 
Barlow on mathematical points, but it was necessary that some 
person should do it, and it appears the lot has fallen on Jonah, 
with what advantages others must judge.” Perhaps a little 
more attention to what he was reading with a view to criticise 
it, would have been better than mere nerve to have contended 
with his supposed formidable opponent. As to the advantages, 
I must leave that question to be settled between Jonah and his 
readers. 
LX. On the Solar Eclipse of May \5th, 1836, particularly as 
it will be seen at Alnwick, in Northumberland. By 'Tuomas 
Squire, Esq. 
To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal. 
GENTLEMEN, 
F all the anticipated celestial phanomena of the present 
year, the large solar eclipse which happens on Sunday, 
