153 



ment — and if — as fame reports — it is only the fore- 

 runner of another on the early discovery of America 



— it is only another proof that your funds are inex- 

 haustible! May you have many years of health and 

 strength granted to you pour them forth — and may 

 each succeeding contribution to our knowledge afford 

 yourself as much delight in its production as it is sure 

 to do your readers in its perusal. 



Miss Gibsone writes word that you have more 

 than once enquired of her when my Cape obser- 

 vations will appear. No one can regret more than 

 myself the delay which has taken place, but it has 

 been unavoidable as I have had every part of the 

 reduction to execute myself and the constuction of 

 the various catalogues, chartes, and minute details of 

 every kind consume a world of time quite dispro- 

 portioned to their apparent extent. However I have 

 great hopes of being able to get a considerable 

 portion in the course of the next year, into the 

 printer's hands. — Some of the Nebulae are already in 

 process of engraving. Perhaps the subject which has 

 given me most trouble is that of the photometi'ic 

 estimation of the magnitudes of Southern stars and 

 their comparison with the Northern ones. — A curious 

 fact respecting one of them, 7 Argus, has been com- 

 municated to me from a correspondent in India. — 

 Mr. Mackay — viz; that it has again made a further, 

 great and sudden step forward in the scale of mag- 

 nitude (you may perhaps remember that in 1837. 8 

 it suddenly increased from 2. 1 m to equal a Centauri) 



— In March 1843, according to Mr. Mackay, it was 

 equal to Canopus. „a Crucis", he says „looked 



