Mr. Bowditch on the Comet of 1811. 315 
was as follows. Perihelion Distance 1052: Time of passing the Pe. 
rihelion, Sept. 6d. 18/4. mean time at Greenwich : Place of the Peri. 
helion counted on the orbit 81°: Longitude of the ascending node 
138°: Inclination of the orbit to the ecliptic 74°: Motion retrogade. 
To satisfy the public curiosity, I published these elements, in the Sa- 
lem Gazette of October 11, 1811, with the apparent path of the comet, 
and its distances from the sun and earth, from February 1811 to Feb- 
ruary 1812, observing that the comet was one that had been before un- 
known to Astronomers, and that the elements might require a correc- 
tion of two or three degrees, to be determined when a greater number 
of observations on a longer arch of the orbit should be obtained. 
To find these corrections I combined the observations of Septem. 
ber 6 and 30, and October 21, which made the Perihelion Distance 
1:032: Time of passing the Perihelion, September 12d. 34. mean 
time at Greenwich : Place of the Perihelion, counted on the orbit of 
the comet 75° 14": Longitude of the ascending node 140° 24’ and 
inclination of the orbit 73°; which were published in the Salem Ga- 
zette of November 1, 1811. The process was repeated with the ob- 
servations of September 6, October 21, and December 16, which 
gave these corrected values. Perihelion distance 1°082=D: Time 
of passing the Perihelion Sept..11d:77 mean time at Nantucket=T : 
Place of the Perihelion counted on the orbit of the comet 75° 24’=P: 
Place of the ascending node 140° 21'=N : Inclination of the orbit to 
the ecliptic 73° 8’=I. 
With these values, D, T, P, N, I, the geocentric longitudes and 
latitudes were calculated for all the observations from September 6 
to December 20, and then the operation was successively repeated, 
with a small variation of each of these elements. Those used at the 
second operation were, D+-004, T, P,; N, 1; at the third Dy T+:05, 
-P,N, 1; at the fourth D, T, P+10', N, I; at the fifth D, T, P, N— 
