148 Proceedings of the British Association. 
$ of the Stars. “As regards the collection of syno- 
nyms, the desetion of errors in mistakes of entry, copying, print- 
ing, or calculation, and their rectification, and the restriction 
within their just boundaries, of the existing constellations, the 
work of your committee has been progressive. * * As re 
the revision and re-distribution of the séuthern constellations, a 
catalogue has in the first place been prepared of all the stars 
within the circle of 70° S. P. D., down to the fifth magnitude, 
with their present actual magnitudes, as determined by a series 
of observations, made expressly for that purpose, which catalogue 
is in course of printing and publication by the Royal Astronomi- 
cal Society. With the magnitudes of this catalogue, a chart has 
been constructed, of which several copies have been made, and 
have been employed for the purpose of grouping the stars in vari- 
ous ways, (without regard to existing constellations, ) and with 
reference only to forming among themselves the most compact 
and striking groups which their distribution in the heavens ad- 
mits, and which the correctness obtained in the magnitudes has 
now, for the first time, rendered practicable. After trying many 
systems and arranging the groups in a great variety of ways, 
your committee have agreed on adopting, as the boundaries of 
the new regions into which they propose distributing the south- 
ern stars, only arcs of meridian and parallels of declination for a 
given epoch; thus including each region within a quadrilateral 
rectangular figure, whose angular points being tabulated in R.A. 
and Decl., may be treated as artificial stars, and thus brought up 
' by the ead tables of precession to any other epoch, their situa- 
tion among the stars being unchanged. ‘Thus it will become a 
mere matter of inspection of a catalogue arranged for the original 
epoch, (which they propose to be that of the Royal Astronomical 
Society’s forthcoming new Catalogue,) which region any given 
star shall belong to. Proceeding then to assign more particularly 
the limits of the several regions, they have succeeded in forming 
an arrangement, in which (subject to such revision and modifica- 
tion as may arise between this and their final Report,) they feel 
disposed.to rest. * * As respects the nomenclature of the new 
regions, the committee are at present engaged in considering it} 
but some principles which will probably influence their recom- 
mendation when the: subject is sufficiently advanced for that step, 
are stated in a paper, which will appear in the forthcoming vol- 
