

S20 



mean to sidereal time, and which was set down and calculated on 

 by Mr. Herschel in the paper drawn up by him, containing an account 

 of the operation and the results deduced, on the authority of official 

 communication with the Astronomer Royal. This error falls on the 

 reduction of the single Greenwich observation of the 21st of July ; 

 and though partly compensated by an opposite error of three tenths 

 of a second committed by Mr. Herschel himself in the reduction of 

 that day's observations, is still sufficient to account for and correct 

 the great and perplexing deviation of that day's results from those of 

 the other three days in which only the signals proved successful. 



The effect of Mr. Henderson's correction is, therefore, to redeem 

 the result of the observations of the 21st of July from the suspicion 

 which attached to them ; to produce a change of one tenth of a second 

 in the final result of the whole operation, giving 9 in 21 8> 5 for the 

 most probable difference of longitude between the two observato- 

 ries ; and, as Mr. Henderson observes, triples the value of the result 

 obtained, by narrowing the extreme range of the experiments from 

 O s- 65 to O s- 21. After a minute re -calculation of the whole work, and 

 the revision especially of the rates of the chronometers, (by which 

 that used at Fairlight appears to have kept a better rate than was at 

 first supposed,) Mr. Henderson concludes his paper with the applica- 

 tion of the doctrine of probabilities, to determine the weights of the 

 several observations, and the probable error of the final result, which 

 comes out O s '07, though the actual uncertainty, he thinks, may amount 

 to s ' 2. 



Some Observations on the Effects of dividing the Nerves of the Lungs, 

 and subjecting the latter to the Influence of voltaic Electricity. By 

 A. P. W. Philip, M.D. F.R.S. L.andE. Read May 10, 1827. 

 [Phil. Trans. 1827,^. 297.] 



The author, in this paper, first recapitulates the results obtained 

 by him in a paper published in the Philosophical Transactions for 

 1822 ; by which it appears that the secreted fluids of animals are so 

 deranged, by dividing the nerves of the secreting organs, as to be in- 

 capable of performing their functions ; but that they may be restored 

 to their former powers by transmitting voltaic electricity through 

 the secreting organs by the portion of the divided nerves attached to 

 them. In this paper, the functions of the stomach were chiefly con- 

 sidered ; in the present, he proposes to consider those of the lungs. 



When the nerves of the 8th pair, supplying the lungs, are divided, 

 the animal breathes with difficulty, and speedily dies of suffocation. 

 If the lungs be examined after death, their cells are found so com- 

 pletely filled with a viscid fluid, as to obliterate them entirely, as well 

 as the air tubes. They sink in water ; and from a description by Mr. 

 Cutler, which is stated by Dr. Philip at length, it appears that they 

 are rendered impermeable to injections. 



The author then states, on his own testimony and that of various 

 other gentlemen who have witnessed the fact, that if the due degree 



