Astronomy. 141 
was dismounted, as it was desirable to take the earliest opportunity of 
completing certain portions of the mechanism which had been put to- 
gether in a temporary way ina rough state, and it was not till the close of 
the year that it was again in working order. During the year 1846, the 
examination of the nebule in Herschel’s Catalogue was continued, many 
sketches were made, and another spiral nebula was discovered, 99 Mes- 
sier. The moon was observed occasionally, and the superiority of the 
to the present notice. The succeeding year, 1847, there was but little 
done. Unprovided at that time with an assistant capable of making 
trustworthy use of the pencil and micrometer, and being almost wholly 
occupied with the duties incidental to a year of famine, it was impossi- 
ble to do more than re-examine a few of the objects of the previous 
year. From the beginning, however, of the year 1848 till the present 
time, the instrument has been constantly employed whenever the season 
and weather permitted it, and the following are some of the results :— 
604 was found in some degree to resemble the great spiral nebula 
51 Messier, but it is a much fainter object, and appears to be made up 
of elliptic streaks disposed rather irregularly with a tendency to spi- 
rality, but without that distinct symmetrical spiral arragement which is 
so marked a feature of 51 Messier. If H 51 Messier were seen some- 
losely resemble it as an arrangement of very elliptic annuli 
and is apparently a system of the same class seen very obliquely. H 
38 
» M 97 is a very extraordinary object, with a dark hollow centre 
somewhat in the shape of a figure 8 easily seen; and with a disc 
irregularly shaded, but showing in the shading a decided tendency to 
spirality when seen under favorable circumstances ; two stars are placed 
in a remarkable manner in the central opening. e may conceive it 
to be a spiral system greatly compressed ; the edges are filamentous. 
05 has a faint but large spiral appendage, to which the ray as 
ured by Herschel is in some measure a tangent. Several other nebulze 
are recorded in our note-books as belonging to the class of spirals. 
The well-known planetary nebula in Aquarius, H 2098, which, in for- 
r years, had been often examined with a telescope of three fe 
_ 
like Saturn. Many have since seen it, and the resemblance to Saturn 
out of focus has usually suggested itself. It is aeons globular sys- 
tem surrounded by a ring seen edgeways; while H 450—whic turns 
a 
improbably a system of the same characters seen directly. H 84 an 
