VOL. XL.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 1J7 



The same, observed in Covent Garden, London. By Dr. Bevis,* p. i6. 



True Time. 



10'' 9*" 40* A thin penumbra commences near Hevelius. 



10 10 20 the penumbra is now very sensible. 



• John Bevis, M. D. and a valuable member of the R. Soc. was born Oct. 31, 1695, o. s. near 

 Old Samm in Wiltshire. At a proper age he was entered at Christ's College, Oxford, where he 

 applied diligently as well to the study of physic, for the practice of which he was intended, as to 

 other sciences, particularly astronomy and optics, in which he became a considerable proficient, 

 both in theory and in practice. Having taken his degree of M.D. he left the university, and tra- 

 velled through France and Italy, where he made respectable connections, and on his return com- 

 ijaenced the occupation of a physician at and near Ixjndon, where he had considerable practice. 



But the study of physic alforded him little pleasure in comparison with that of contemplating the 

 celestial bodies and their motions. As early as 1738 he had made an excellent collection of astrono- 

 mical instruments, for furnishing a new observatory, which he had built at Stoke Newington near 

 London. Here he became an indefatigable observer, having filled 3 folio volumes with observations 

 made in the course of one year. From these he selected the most important parts, making one 

 volume of 196 pages, on large paper, where it frequently appears that the transits of 16"0 stars, &c. 

 have been observed by him in one night. 



Dr. Bevis continued to observe the heavens with the same assiduity till the year 1745 ; when, 

 from his vast collection of materials, he undertook the laborious task of arranging, and publishing 

 by subscription, a work entitled Uranographia Britannica, or an exact view of the heavens, on 5'Z 

 plates, similar to that of Bayer, representing the constellations, and all the fixed stars observed by 

 former astronomers, with the addition of those observed by himself. 



Those plates, so honourable to his country and to himself, though they have been engraved for 

 so many years, have unfortunately been prevented from coming before the public ; having entrusted 

 the care of engraving the plates, and receiving the subscriptions, to a person who, after receiving 

 several hundred pounds of the money subscribed, became a bankrupt ; by which the work passed 

 into tlie hands of the creditors, and thus has been lost to the world. 



Dr. Bevis was the real author of a great many works, which have been well received by the public, 

 but which his modesty prevented him from taking the merit of. It is to him we are indebted for 

 the publication of Dr. Halley's Astronomical Tables, after they had been printed more tlian 20 

 years; having supplied some auxiliary tables, and the precepts for using them, he brought tJie whole 

 to light in the year 1749. — At a meeting of the Board of Longitude, Sept. 18, 1764, Dr. Bevis was 

 nominated to compute the observations made at Greenwich, and to compaie them with those made 

 at Portsmouth and elsewhere, for the purpose of ascertaining the accuracy of Mr. Harrison's Time- 

 keepers. — In Mr. Simpson's Essays, p. 10, are delivered practical rules for finding the aberration, 

 which were drawn up and given him by Dr. Bevis, with examples of the correction applied to se- 

 veral stars, which he had carefully observed witli proper instruments ; by which he has proved, the 

 first of any one, that the phenomena are as conformable in right ascension, as Dr. Bradley, who 

 made this great discovery, found them to be in declination. — Several pieces of the Doctor's were 

 inserted in the few numbers that were published of a work, called The Mathematical Magazine, by 

 Mr. Moss and Mr. Witchell, particularly a curious paper on the Satellite of Venus, and several sheets 

 of a new Mathematical Dictionary. — Dr. Bevis enriched the Philos. Trans, with 27 valuable papers, 

 mostly containing Astronomical Obsenations, viz. from vol. 40 to vol. 59 inclusive. He announced 

 in the Journal des S9avans, for August 1771, an English translation of La Lande's Astronomy, 



