ASTRONOMY. 



. The attempts of astronomers to discover 

 the annual parallax of the fixed stars by direct 

 observation, have not yet been perfectly suc- 

 cessful ; and it is therefore probable, that the 

 quantity sought for does not exceed one se- 

 cond. 



Dr BRINKLEY is of opinion, that he has ascertained 

 the annual parallax of * Lyres to be 2".52. PhiL 

 Trans. 1810, p. 204-. 



The attempts to discover the parallax, have chiefly 

 been made on smaller stars, which, being proba- 

 bly more distant than * Lyree, their parallax has 

 been too small for observation. The observation 

 of Dr BRINKLEY is of great authority, but, while 

 single, cannot be considered as perfectly decisive. 



If we suppose the annual parallax not to exceed 1", 

 the distance of the fixed stars cannot be less than 

 206265 times the radius of the Earth's orbit. As 

 light traverses the latter in 8'. 13", it will require 

 3 years and 79 days to come from a fixed star to 

 the Earth. 

 or : 



This may be supposed true for stars of the second 

 magnitude, even if those of the first have a paral- 

 lax of two seconds. 



Though this distance is immense, it is probably small 

 compared to that of the most remote of the bodies 



which 



