GAO exci ie wae 
“XXXVII- 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE ECLIPSE OF SEPT. 17, 1844, acs AT 
URLINGTON IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VERMON 
BY JAMES DEAN, A.A.S. 
Professor of Mathematics at that University. 
Extracted from letters to Nathaniel Bowditch. 
a 
A COMMON brass eight day clock, made at Burlington, was 
used in these observations. It was regulated in the ordinary method, 
by taking equal altitudes of the sun by reflection from a vessel of tar, 
by a Hadley’s octant. Sept. 10th at noon, by the mean of 19 pairs of 
altitudes (corrected for the change of declination) the clock was too 
slow for apparent time 1’ 28”, Sept. 11th at noon, by the mean of 
13 pairs, it was too slow 2'9”, Sept. 12th, at noon, by the mean of 
9 pairs of observations, it was too slow 2’ 53”. Sept. 13th and Mth it 
was cloudy. On the 15th, though the weather was very bad, cloudy 
and hazy, I thought it absolutely necessary to examine the motion of 
the clock. In 24 pairs of observations 17 were within 10"; the mean 
of these made the clock too slow for apparent time at noon, Sept. 15th, 
59", Having computed, by counting the threads in an inch on the 
rod of the pendulum, that 13 turn of the nut would about correct the 
loss of 44” in a day, I determined to regulate and adjust the clock to 
apparent time, to avoid the perplexity of odd minutes and seconds. 
Clock too slow at noon i ‘ 5) gt 
Loss in winding . = Z ° 13 
Asiditional loss till 4 o’clock rs = 7 
ne aeeee emma 
BS oe eee ee ‘ 
Stopt to regulate it and bring it toaneven minute S51 
Set forward r = 6 0” 
