118 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1737. 



True Time. 



2Qh J 2™ 40» beginning of the eclipse. 



11 10 O the total immersion. 



12 46 56 beginning of the emersion, 



13 46 25 the true shadow ends. 



13 48 30 the penumbra no longer sensible. 



The same observed at Yeovil in Somersetshire. Latitude 50 Degrees 52 

 Minutes. By Mr. John Milner, p. 18. 



The beginning of the eclipse 10*" 6" O* 



Beginning of total obscuration 114 30 



Middle of the eclipse 1 1 54 O 



End of total obscuration .... 12 43 30 



The end of the eclipse 139 15 



Some Investigations, by which it is proved that the Figure of the Earth must ap- 

 proach very near to an Ellipsis, according to the Laws of Attraction Inversely 

 as the Squares of the Distances. By M. Alexis Clair aut,* F. R. S. and of 



made principally by himself j but this was never published, though left ready for the press at his 

 death — ^The only things which appeared separately with his name, besides the papers in the Philos. 

 Trans, just mentioned, were two pamphlets, the one entitled " The Satellite Sliding Rule," for 

 determining the immersions and emersions of Jupiter's four Satellites. The other was, "An Expe- 

 rimental Enquiry concerning the Contents, Qualities, and Medicinal Virtues of the two Mineral 

 Waters lately discovered at Bagnigge Wells near London, &c. in 8vo. 1760." 



Dr. Bevis made some curious experiments on the refractive power of glass, in the composition of 

 which he had used a quantity of Ijorax, and found the refrangibility was as gi-eat as that of English 

 crystal. He corresponded with most of the principal astronomers in all parts of the continent j 

 several of whom make honorable mention, in their works, of the civilities and attention they received 

 from him, either during their stay in England, or by communications to them abroad. 



On the death of Mr. Bliss, in 1765, his friends made great exertions to procure for Dr. Bevis 

 the situation of Astronomer Royal, but the superior interest of Dr. Maskelyne secured the office 

 for the latter. 



A few years before his death. Dr. Bevis removed from his house and observatory at Stoke 

 Newington, to reside in the Temple, London, for the better convenience of his occupation as a 

 physician, and at the Royal Society ; which occasioned an interruption in his astronomical ob- 

 servations. In this situation he died Nov. 6, 1771, at 76 years of age j his, death having been 

 occasioned by a fall he received a short time before, in going rather too hastily from his in- 

 strument to the clock, in observing the sun's meridian altitude. 



In his disposition, Dr. Bevis was lively, amiable and liberal; extending his services to all de- 

 serving objects, under any kind of embarrasments. 



♦ Alexis Claud Clairaut, F.R.S. and member of the French Academy of Sciences, &c. was a 

 most respectable mathematician. He was bom May 13, 1713, at Paris, where his father was a 

 teacher of mathematics. He was it seems a kind of premature genius, which seconded by his 



