458 Royal Astronomical Society. 



Jan. 13, 1832. — The following communications were read : — 



I. The conclusion of Sir J. Herschel's paper on the Orbits of Binarj' 

 Stars. 



II. Account of the Occultation of 1 19 and 120 Tauri by the Moon, 

 on December 18, 1831. By Sir James South. In a Letter to Mr. 

 Baily. 



III. Observations of Occultations of Stars by the Moon, made at 

 Bedford, by Captain Smyth, between the months of January and 

 December 1831. 



IV. Observations of Occultations and of Stars observed with the 

 Moon, at the Cambridge Observatory, during the year 1831. By 

 Professor Airy. 



V. Stars observed with the Moon at Greenwich, in December 183 1 . 

 From the Astronomer Royal. 



Mr. Baily announced from the Chair, that he had received a com- 

 munication from Professor Schumacher, stating that His Majesty the 

 King of Denmark had founded a gold medal, to be given to the first 

 discoverer of a comet, not of known revolution, nor visible to the 

 naked eye ; subject to certain conditions, which have been recorded in 

 the Phil. Mag. and Annals, N. S. vol.xi. p. 155. 



(The proceedings of Feb. 10 will be found at p. 234, and those of 

 March 9, at p. 390, of the present volume.) 



April 13. — The following communications were read, &c. 



I. Comparisons of the Right Ascension of Polaris, as obtained by 

 observation, with that given in Bessel's catalogue for 1831 ; and 

 observations of \ Ursa Minoris and 51 (Hevelius) Cephei, made with 

 a 5-feet transit at Blackheath. By Mr. Wrottesley. 



II. Mr. Sheepshanks gave an account of the mural circle, with the 

 methods of using it hitherto followed, and a description of the state 

 and defects of the circle at the Cape Observatory. 



III. A List of Stars observed with the Moon, at the Royal Obser- 

 vatory, Greenwich, March 1832. 



IV. Transits of the Moon, with Moon-culminating Stars, observed 

 at Cambridge in the month of May 1832. 



Mr. Baily stated, in reference to Dr. Robinson's paper " On the 

 dependence of a clock's rate on the height of the barometer," read in 

 June 1831, of which an abstract was given in Pliil. Mag. and Annals, 

 N.S. vol. X. p. 445, that he had recently swung the mercurial pen- 

 dulum in a vacuum apparatus, and found that a variation of one inch 

 in the pressure of the atmosphere produced a diflerence of 0-42 se- 

 conds a day in the rate of the pendulum ; which is more than double 

 the quantity deduced by Dr. Robinson, from the observed alteration 

 of rate, when compared with the height of the barometer. 



May 1 1. — The following communications vvere read : — 



1. On the transit of Mercury, which took place on the 5th instant: 

 consisting of, 1. observations made by the Astronomer Royal and Mr. 

 Simms, at the Royal Observatory; 2. by Mr. Riddle at Greenwich 

 Hospital ; 3. at the Observatory, Exchequer-street, Dublin j and 4. by 

 Mr. Simms, in Fleet-street. 



1 1.. Observations of the Occultation of Saturn on tlie 8th instant: 



