604 PHILOSOPHICAL TltAXSACT IONS, [anNO 1/33. 



a fourth preceding the right foot of Antinous ; a fifth in Hercules ; and that in 

 Andromeda's Girdle. 



Five of these six Dr. D. has carefully viewed with his excellent 8-foot re- 

 flecting telescope, and finds them to be phgenomena much alike; all except that 

 preceding the right foot of Antinous, which is not a nebulose, but a cluster of 

 stars, somewhat like that in the milky-way. 



Between the other four, he finds no material difference ; only some are 

 rounder, some of a more oval form, without any fixed stars in them to cause 

 their light ; only that in Orion has some stars in it, visible only with the tele- 

 scope, but by no means sufficient to cause the light of the nebulose there. But 

 bv these stars it was, that he first perceived the distance of the nebulosae to be 

 greater than that of the fixed stars, and put him on inquiring into the rest of 

 them. Every one of which he could very visibly and plainly discern, to be at 

 immense distances beyond the fixed stars near them, whether visible to the 

 naked eye, or telescopic only ; yea, they seemed to be as far beyond the fixed 

 stars, as any of those stars are from the earth. 



And now he concludes them certainly not to be lucid bodies, that send their 

 light to us, as the sun and moon. Neither are they the combined light of 

 clusters of stars, like that of the milky-way ; but he takes them to be vast 

 areas, or regions of light, infallibly beyond the fixed stars, and devoid of them. 

 He says regions, meaning spaces of a vast extent, large enough to appear of 

 such a size as they do to us, at so great a distance as they are from us. And 

 since those spaces are devoid of stars, and even that in Orion itself has its stars 

 bearing a very small proportion to its nebulose, and they are visibly not the cause 

 of it, he leaves it to others to judge, whether these nebulosas are particular 

 spaces of light ; or rather, whether they may not, in all probability, be chasms, 

 or openings into an immense region of light, beyond the fixed stars. 



Some Magnetical Observations, made in May, June and July, 1732, in the 

 Atlantic or Western Ocean; as also the Description of a TVater-Spout. By 

 Mr. Joseph Harris. N° 4'28, p. 75. 



The knowledge of the magnetical variation is of such consequence to the ma- 

 riner, that without it he cannot know his course; and were its theory once esta- 

 blished, it might be of great use for estimating the longitude in several parts of 

 the world, as has been often and very justly observed by others. But till this be 

 determined, we must rely on observations. 



Sometime before, Mr. Harris took notice of the imperfections of the com- 

 mon azimuth compass, and how ill it is adapted for the purpose intended. He 



