108 New Method of determining the Longitude. 
shameful manner in which the English Nautical Almanac 
has been conducted. 
he determination of the longitude by the culmination 
of the moon and stars, which is the subject of Mr. Baily’s 
paper, cannot be employed at sea, because it requires a 
transit instrument fixed in the meridian. This gentleman 
does not pretend to be the inventor of this method, since it 
as.been known nearly two centuries: But he proposes a 
more advantageous mode of making the observation, anda 
new formula for deducing therefrom the longitude. And 
inits presentimproved form, he regards this method as 
more likely than any yet proposed, to lead to accurate and 
satisfactory results: and after an examination of the sub- 
ject, we are inclined to the same opinion. But we willlet 
him speak for himself. 
* The meridional transits of the moon, agreeably to the 
method about to be described in this paper, are free from 
all these objections: the observations are made with the 
greatest facility ; the opportunities are of frequent occur- 
rence ; the absolute time is of no material consequence ; 
the computations are by no means intricate or troublesome ; 
and the results are (I believe) more to be relied on than 
by any of the preceding methods ;” (by chronometers, 
eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites, of the sun, and of the moon, 
and occultations, of which the author had been treating.) 
p- 3. 
“* The newly proposed method consists in merely observ- 
ing, with a transit instrument, the differences of right as- 
cension between the border of the moon, and certain fixed 
' stars previously agreed on; restricting the observations to 
such stars as differ very little from the moon in declination. 
It is evident that this method is quite independent of the er- 
rors of the lunar tables, except so faras the horary motion 
of the moon (in right ascension) is concerned, and which 
in the present case, may be depended on with sufficient 
confidence : that it does not involve any question as to the 
compression of the earth: that a knowledge of the correct 
position of the star is not at all required : and finally, that 
an error of several seconds, in the state of the clock, is of 
