6&S ttcfttRt «inii. 



scntations, is said to have replkd with earnestness, that he " ftiust have the 

 places of the stars anew observed, examined, and corrected, for the use of his sea- 

 men"; upon this Flamsteed was appointed Astronomer Royal, with a salary of 

 ^100 a year, and it was proposed to have an observatory built either in Hyde 

 Park, or at Chelsea college; but, upon Sir Christopher Wren's recommendation^ 

 the situation of Greenwich Park was preferred. 



In the year 1714', the British Parliament offered .£20 01)0 for a determina- 

 tion of the longitude of a ship at sea, without an error of 30 miles, and a 

 smaller sum for a less accurate method, appointing at the same time a Board 

 of Longitmle for the examination of the methods which might be proposed. 

 Under this act several rewards were assigned, and in ] 77^^, it was superseded 

 by another, which offers .£5000 for the invention of any timekeeper, or other 

 method, capable of determining the longitude of a place within 1 degree, 

 and cflOOOO if within 30 miles ; and a reward of .=£'5000 to the author of any 

 lunar tables, which should be found within 15 seeonds of the truth; allowing 

 the Board also the power of granting smaller sums at their discretion. Time- 

 keepers are at present very commonly employed in the British navy, atid some 

 of them have been capable of determining the longitude within half a degree, 

 after having been two or three months at sea. The lUnar tables, which have 

 been employed for the Nautical Almanacs, are those of Professor Mayer, 

 who adopted the methods of calculation invented by Leonard Euler ; but 

 the tables of Mr. Burg, of Vienna, are still mo-re accurate, and are said to 

 be always within about ten seconds of the truth. 



The progress of astronomy, since the death of Newton, in 1727, has been^ 

 fully adequate to what its most sanguine votaries could have hoped. The 

 great discoveries of the aberration of the fixed stars, and of the nutation of 

 the earth's axis, were made by our countryman Bradley, with the assistance of 

 the instruments for which he was indebted to the delicate workmanship of 

 our artists. Among these the names of Bird, Short, Sisson, Graham, Dol- 

 lond, Harrison, and Ramsden have long been celebrated throughout Europe, 

 The geographical operations, which have been performed in every part of the 

 globe, have been chiefly conducted by the liberality of the French and English 

 governments, although other countries have not been deficient in taking 



