VOL. XXXIH.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 4p 



An Account of the Scarabcrus Galeatiis Pulsator, or the Death Watch. By Mr. 

 Hugh Stackhouse. N° 385, p. ISg. 

 A very full account of this insect by Mr. Derham having been inserted in 

 some of the preceding Vols, of the Phil. Trans, (see Vol. iv. p. 576, and Vol. v. 

 p. 134 of these Abridgments) it seemed unnecessary to reprint Mr. S.'s obser- 

 vations on the same subject. 



Observations of the Eclipses of the first Satellite of Jupiter, communicated by 

 William Burnet, Esq. Governor of New York, F.R.S. N° 385, p. l6'2. 



These observations were made in the Fort of New York, for determining 

 the longitude of that place. 



The latitude of the fort was formerly determined to be 40° 40'. 



The observations were made on several days in the years 1723 and 1724. 

 And the times of the observed eclipses being compared 4'' 58'" 42' 



with the times at London, as computed from Mr. Pound's 4 58 33 



tables, give the several differences of times in the margin, 4 58 22 



the mean of all being 4'^ 58"> 30% or 74° 57' 30" nearly, 4 58 21 



which is taken as the mean longitude of New York from 



London. But as this determination is from the times mean 4 58 30 

 observed at New York, compared with those computed at London, instead of 

 times observed at this place, the result cannot be expected to be accurate, but 

 must involve at least the same error as the tables from whence the computa- 

 tions were made. In fact, by later observations it is found that the longitude 

 of New York is 74° 4' west from London, or 74° lO' from Greenwich. 



The variation of tlie magnetic needle was observed, this year, to be 7° 20' 

 west. Philip Wells, surveyor general of this province, in the year 1686, ob- 

 served it to be 8° 45' ; by which, it appears to decrease about 1° 25' in 38 years, 

 or a little more than 2 minutes in a year. 



A New Contrivance for taking Levels. By the Rev. J. T. Desagidiers, LL.D. 

 R.S.S. N°385, p. 105. 



That the air thermometer is also a barometer, has long been observed ; and, 

 because the liquor in it will rise and fall, as well by the change of the weight of 

 the air, as by its rarefaction by heat and cold, this instrument has been disused 

 as a thermometer, and in its stead spirit of wine thermometers, hermetically 

 sealed, have been used ever since. 



But, because the errors of the air thermometer, or its difference from the 

 spirit thermometer, depend only on the change of the weight of the atmos- 

 phere, from what it was when the two thermometers were set at the same de- 



VOL. VII. H 



