VOL. I.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 127 



fished them out of the lakes in the winter, but I never have seen it myself. — 

 Whilst I am writing this, I receive letters out of Denmark, advertising me, 

 that those two learned men, Thomas and Erasmus Bartholin, intend shortly 

 to answer the same quaeries. Next winter, if God vouchsafe me life and 

 health, I purpose to make a journey to Konigsberg, where I hope to learn 

 many things, especially about amber. 



I am very glad to understand that you have so good telescopes, as to make 

 such considerable observations in Jupiter and Mars, as you have lately done in 

 England. I have no leisure now, by reason of the observations of the fixed 

 stars, which I now almost constantly am employed about, to do any thing in 

 the advancing of telescopes. I am obliged to finish the catalogue of the fixed 

 stars ; having meanwhile the contentment to find that many excellent persons 

 labour about the improvement of optic glasses. Before I conclude, I must give 

 notice to the lovers of astronomy, that on the 24th of September (N. S.) of 

 this year, I have observed that new star in Pectore Cygni, which from the year 

 1662, until this time, has been almost altogether hid, not only with my naked 

 eye, like a star of the 6th or 7th magnitude, but also with a very large sextant. 

 It is still in the very same part of the heavens where it was formerly, from 

 An. 1601, to almost 1662. For its distance from Scheat Pegasi I have found 

 35' 51' 20", and from Marcab, 43° 10' 50'', which distances, as I have found 

 in my journal, are equal to those which I observed An. l658, the 1st of No- 

 vember. For the distance from Scheat at that time was 35° 5 1' 20", and from 

 Marcab 43° lO' 25" : It is therefore certain, that it is the self same star which 

 Kepler first saw An. 1601, and continued until 1662. But whether in time it 

 will grow larger and larger, or be lost again, time must show. He that will ob- 

 serve this star, must take care lest he mistake those three more southern ones 

 of the sixth magnitude, and now in a manner somewhat brighter than the new 

 star in Collo Cygni. The highest of those three is distant from Scheat Pegasi 

 36° 25' 45^ the middlemost from the same 37° 25' 20", and the lowest 

 36° 4' 30'.* 



Anstvej^s to Queries. By M, J oh. Schefferus. iV° 19, p- 349. 

 That he is confident the Royal Society of England will do much good for the 

 advancement of useful knowledge. 



That he conceives amber to be a kind of fossil pitch, whose veins lie at the 

 bottom of the sea ; believing that it is hardened in course of time, and by the 

 motion of the sea cast on shore. 



That it is most certain, that swallows sink themselves towards autumn into 

 lakes, no otherwise than frogs ; and that many have assured him of it, who 

 * For the figure of this constellation^ see p. 1 37. 



