316 NOTES TO BOOK VII. 



King Charles, he was startled at the assertion of the fixed 

 stars' places being false in the catalogue, and said with 

 some vehemence, " He must have them anew observed, 

 examined, and corrected, for the use of his seamen."" This 

 was the immediate occasion of building Greenwich Obser- 

 vatory, and placing Flamsteed there as observer. Flam- 

 steed's Historia Celestis contained above 3000 stars, 

 observed with telescopic sights. It has recently been re- 

 published with important improvements by Mr. Baily. 

 See Baily's Flamsteed, p. 38. 



The French Histoire Celeste was published in J 801 by 

 Lalande, containing 50,000 stars, simply as observed by 

 himself and other French astronomers. The reduction of 

 the observations contained in this Catalogue to the mean 

 places at the beginning of the year 1800 may be effected 

 by means of Tables published by Schumacher for that 

 purpose in 1825. 



In 1807, Piazzi's Catalogue of 6748 stars, founded on 

 Maskelyne's Catalogue of 1700, was published; afterwards 

 extended to 7646 stars in 1814. This is considered as 

 the greatest work undertaken by any modern astronomer ; 

 the observations being well made, reduced and compared 

 with those of former astronomers. Piazzi's Catalogue is 

 the standard and accurate Catalogue, as the Histoire 

 Celeste is the standard approximate Catalogue for small 

 stars. But the new planets were discovered mostly by 

 a comparison of the heavens with Bode's Catalogue. 



I may mention other Catalogues of Stars which have 

 recently been published. Pond's Catalogue contains 1112 

 Northern stars; Johnson's 606; Wrottesley's 1318 (in 

 Right Ascension only) ; Airy's First Cambridge Cata- 

 logue, 726; his Greenwich Catalogue, 1439. Pearson's 



